Capra's Triangle

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Noxion, As our postings have met several times before and as you ran Science and Environment when I first joined Revleft and I posted much in that forum, I assumed you had already encountered the triangle.

I've seen you mention it, but I do not recall engaging with you on the subject. Hence this thread.


In short, matter has self-organized into living systems that create and maintain the life process on Earth, and Capra's triangle models the universal pattern of organization of these systems. This pattern of organization then enables living systems to dynamically integrate with the physical forces of the environment and the universe, to answer one of your questions.

I have a couple of issues here:

1) The vast majority of the universe is inimical to the existence of life as we know it. Life exists in a very thin layer extending from the upper bounds of the Earth's crust to the lower troposphere, and has not been conclusively found anywhere else in the universe's billions of light-years at all. This includes time as well as space - so far as we can tell, life of any sort has only existed for three or four billion years compared to the estimated age of the universe, around 12-15 billion years depending.

2) Triangles have three sides, but the workings of the universe don't come in threes. The aforementioned physical forces come in four varieties, electromagnetic charges come only in positive or negative, and so far there's no indication of such things as negative mass, negative gravity or negative energy. The triangle is an incomplete model, at least far as the physics of material reality are concerned.


We are all children of the universe. Matter emerges from the deep universe and its energized forces and relations, and the self-organization of matter on Earth creates living systems whose relations dynamically integrate them into the life process and the cosmos.

This is true to a point, but by itself serves as no validation. Evolution by natural selection is our best model for the material self-organisation of the living world, but it ain't triangular. What validates evolution by natural selection is the empirical evidence.


People are self-organized material systems that must consciously organize themselves into the patterns the rest of life automatically enjoys. This is the pattern of life and community, and Capra's triangle is an absolutely unprecedented mental tool that make this possible.

Do you have any examples of this tool in action?

[Mr. Natural]

Noxion, Thanks very much for your interest and this thread. I will eagerly respond to any and all questions, but need to say I have a two-day-old computer problem that defies regular fixing and freezes my home page and often denies me internet access. So there may be delays in my replies as I try to get this fixed.

You point out, "The vast majority of the universe is inimical to the existence of life as we know it." So true, but on Earth, matter has self-organized into living systems that create and compose the life process. What is that organization? Answer: it is the organization modeled and made visible by Capra's triangle. Life on Earth has a universal pattern of organization that was established at the beginning of life some 4 billion years ago. This is the organization that we who must consciously organize our lives in the pattern of life must come to understand and use.

Of course, it is counterintuitive that the vast complexity of life arises from a simple organizational pattern, but that's life! As the Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann puts it, life is "surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity." Capra's triangle models that deep simplicity.

You write, "The triangle is an incomplete model, at least as far as the physics of material reality are concerned." No, the triangle is a complete model of life's universal pattern of organization that reductively breaks the inseparable unity of organization into three parts so our reductive perception/consciousness can grapple with it. In order to think, humans must "thing," and Capra's triangle successfully "things" life's inseparable organizational unity. This organization then integrates living systems with the physical forces of their environment.

You ask, "Do you have any examples of [the triangle] in action? Yes and No. All living systems--cells to Gaia to successful forms of human community--are examples of the triangle in action. They are all self-organized matterial systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; in human terms, their meaning and purpose). But no, the triangle itself has yet to come to life in human practice. The first step in this process will be for two or three other Revlefters to get what I'm attempting to present and join with me in a project to make this triangle/embodied materialist dialectic more mentally accessible to others. Our reductive human perception/consciousness is a major barrier to this happening. Once this barrier is breached, though, the various Revleft tendencies will be able to come up with many sorts of effective revolutionary ideas leading to groups leading to processes.

You wrote, "What validates evolution by natural selection is the empirical evidence." I'm going to use your statement to point out just how stuck humanity is in all fields, for neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, as is true for Marxist theory, is incomplete. Both lack life's self-organization. Evolution is not just natural selection with random mutation. A complete evolutionary theory would have to embrace the phenomena of self-organization and emergence as well as natural selection with mutation. A complete Marxism would also embrace self-organization ("associations will be formed"), emergence (revolutionary groups and processes) and natural selection with mutation (engagement with the capitalist society-at-large and its constantly changing conditions).

Capra's triangle then shows how to organize our minds in the pattern of life so we may "see" and engage life and its organzation and create our communities successfullly.

It will not be surprising to you that Marxism and evolutionary theory are in need of radical revision once you realize that humanity has historically been blind to life's organization and that all our sciences and philosophies and revolutionary theories must come to terms with organization.

My red-green best.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Noxion, Thanks very much for your interest and this thread. I will eagerly respond to any and all questions, but need to say I have a two-day-old computer problem that defies regular fixing and freezes my home page and often denies me internet access. So there may be delays in my replies as I try to get this fixed.

Fair enough.


You point out, "The vast majority of the universe is inimical to the existence of life as we know it." So true, but on Earth, matter has self-organized into living systems that create and compose the life process. What is that organization? Answer: it is the organization modeled and made visible by Capra's triangle. Life on Earth has a universal pattern of organization that was established at the beginning of life some 4 billion years ago. This is the organization that we who must consciously organize our lives in the pattern of life must come to understand and use.

Of course, it is counterintuitive that the vast complexity of life arises from a simple organizational pattern, but that's life! As the Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann puts it, life is "surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity." Capra's triangle models that deep simplicity.

In order to be considered a scientific hypothesis, Capra's Triangle needs to make falsifiable predictions. What are they?


You write, "The triangle is an incomplete model, at least as far as the physics of material reality are concerned." No, the triangle is a complete model of life's universal pattern of organization that reductively breaks the inseparable unity of organization into three parts so our reductive perception/consciousness can grapple with it. In order to think, humans must "thing," and Capra's triangle successfully "things" life's inseparable organizational unity. This organization then integrates living systems with the physical forces of their environment.

How does it do that?


You ask, "Do you have any examples of [the triangle] in action? Yes and No. All living systems--cells to Gaia to successful forms of human community--are examples of the triangle in action. They are all self-organized matterial systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; in human terms, their meaning and purpose).

I'm afraid I'm still not seeing how all such marvelous complexity is reducible to a triangular model. I accept that complexity can naturally arise from simplicity, chaos theory is a good example of that, as is the origin of species by natural selection (no matter the details, it's evidential that it happens).


But no, the triangle itself has yet to come to life in human practice. The first step in this process will be for two or three other Revlefters to get what I'm attempting to present and join with me in a project to make this triangle/embodied materialist dialectic more mentally accessible to others. Our reductive human perception/consciousness is a major barrier to this happening. Once this barrier is breached, though, the various Revleft tendencies will be able to come up with many sorts of effective revolutionary ideas leading to groups leading to processes.

I counsel patience, and a willingness to re-examine and if necessary alter any models you may propose. The empirical should take primacy over the theoretical.


You wrote, "What validates evolution by natural selection is the empirical evidence." I'm going to use your statement to point out just how stuck humanity is in all fields, for neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, as is true for Marxist theory, is incomplete. Both lack life's self-organization. Evolution is not just natural selection with random mutation. A complete evolutionary theory would have to embrace the phenomena of self-organization and emergence as well as natural selection with mutation. A complete Marxism would also embrace self-organization ("associations will be formed"), emergence (revolutionary groups and processes) and natural selection with mutation (engagement with the capitalist society-at-large and its constantly changing conditions).

But if organisation comes before intelligence, then what other conclusion is there other than that the indifferent laws of physics are capable of producing cosmological scales of complexity, all by themselves?


Capra's triangle then shows how to organize our minds in the pattern of life so we may "see" and engage life and its organzation and create our communities successfullly.

It will not be surprising to you that Marxism and evolutionary theory are in need of radical revision once you realize that humanity has historically been blind to life's organization and that all our sciences and philosophies and revolutionary theories must come to terms with organization.

I accept that all scientific theories are incomplete and likely will be for a long time. We haven't run out of questions to answer and I don't see how we will do so any time soon. Which is why I am somewhat skeptical.

[Strannik]

I'd like to ask whether I have understood this correctly:

under "triangle" we understand here Capra's three key characteristics for defining living systems.

And Capra wants to say that a system should be considered living when

1. It is organized as an autopoietic (self-replicating) network. More precisely, it possesses a cyclical process of self-replication, performed by many similar units.
2. It is constantly enganged in a cognitive process (gathering and processing information from beyond its boundaries?) to support its autopoiesis.
3. It possesses a dissipative structure - i.e. it is open in thermodynamic sense

[ckaihatsu]

In order to be considered a scientific hypothesis, Capra's Triangle needs to make falsifiable predictions. What are they?


This is the definition for a 'hypothesis', as you're noting. Capra's Triangle is more of a *theoretical framework*, meaning that repeated, consistent empirical evidence tends to support the construction, or theory.

[Mr. Natural]

Thanks for the interest, Comrades. I accessed the internet on my second try today, and will head for a computer guru to fix the problem after I post.

Noxion wrote, "In order to be considered a scientific hypothesis, Capra's Triangle needs to make falsifiable predictions. What are they?"

Ckaihatsu's reply nails it: "Capra's triangle is more of a 'theoretical frame', meaning that repeated, consistent empirical evidence tends to support the construction, or theory." And this has certainly been the case, for my relentless research into all areas of the triangle has only served to confirm it. I'm after truth and not to sway others to a personal headtrip, and I have rigorously, vigorously, repeatedly tested Capra's triangle, and these tests have only confirmed its authenticity and revolutionary potential.

I'd better supply a brief description of the triangle, which reductively models the inseparable unity of the universal pattern of organization of a living system. Place the "categories," or "elements" of PATTERN, MATTER, and PROCESS at the triangle's angles. All living systems are in the network Pattern of organization (think webs, grassroots democracy, communism), and the Matter category represents all the physical stuff. Now we come to the Process element, which is a living system's "economy." The Process element is a living system's life activity, how it makes its living, its environmental relations, its meaning, purpose. Process integrates the living system's internal being with its environment of other living systems and physical forces and enables it to gain the energy and relations necessary to maintain its being.

The Process element is tricky and represents the "genius of life." A living system's life activity is the means by which self-organizing (inner control of actions and behaviors) systems maintain a necessary dynamic interdependence with their surround. Life is a bootstrap of self-organizing living systems whose relations generated by a universal pattern of organization keep the organic, systemic process of life going. I bolded "organic, systemic process of life" because the materialist dialectic also views "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) as organic, systemic processes. See Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic for confirmation of this.

Back to the triangle. Its seamless unity of Pattern/Matter/Process tells us that all life (and healthy human societies) consists of self-organized material systems network-patterned with what they do. Being and doing are thus inseparable. What something is is what it does. A bark beetle's physical form and relations is how it makes its living. A falcon is physically organized differently and makes its living differently. Beetles and falcons automatically assume their necessary environmental relations, though, while the physical organization of a human being says we must consciously create our natural living conditions in a pattern of organization we cannot see and find difficult to comprehend

So all life consists of self-organizing living systems that are beings materially network-patterned with what they do. The Process category--life activity--is how they dynamically integrate their internal self-organization with the "external" self-organization of the bootstrapping life process on Earth.

It's all "triangles," Comrades. Life has a universal pattern of organization that is the pattern of self-organizing community and self-organizing, bottom-up anarchism/communism.

I don't agree that "The empirical should take primacy over the theoretical." They are a unity that must be honored together in praxis.

Noxion wrote, "If organization comes before intelligence ..." But organization is intelligent. It is a computation of sorts whereby living systems engage and "understand" themselves and each other and keep themselves and each other and the life process going.

I know this is a difficult post to read. Just remember that life has a universal pattern of organization that is modeled by Capra's triangle. Life is composed of and created by living systems, which are self-organized material systems network-patterned with what they do. Thus a baseball team is composed of persons and tools (Matter) network-Patterned with its meaning/purpose (Process): playing baseball and aligning itself on offense and defense to engage with its environment of opposing team and playing field. A baseball manager is "using the triangle" unconsciously as he/she moves players around.

For that matter, the various forms of anarchism/communism would consist of self-organizing people network-patterned in forms of community internally and externally (other people and nature), wouldn't they?

Anarchism and communism are natural. So what is their natural organization? See Capra's triangle.

My red-green, wordy best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, You really seem to be getting a "feel" for life's organization. Now I hope you might be able to "feel" the triangle. I now see and feel it everywhere, for it does accurately model the organization of all the life that surrounds me. Just remember that all living systems self-organize their material into network patterns that create an internal "self" that dynamically engages its external envoronment. Thus a cell's components have self-organized into a cell with a permeable membrane through which it engages its environment and "makes its living."

You wrote of an autopoietic (self-making) system, "It possesses a dissipative structure--i.e., it is open in the thermodynamic sense." You betcha. "Self-organization" and "autopoiesis" are, in effect, identical concepts, and dissipative self-organization means living systems are structurally open, organizationally closed. They take in energy and materials and dissipate "waste" that will be energy sources for other living systems.

Life overcomes the Second Law Of Thermodynamics. Living systems don't run down but dynamically engage their environment to keep going. How do they do this and "make a living"? This will be the means by which humanity must organize its communities to "make its living," too. People, too, are self-organized, autopoietic material systems, and we must organize our living systems/communities in the pattern of life so that they and their contents (that's us!) may come to life.

What I'm attempting to present is "mechanistic" in a sense: life has a pattern of organization and some "rules" we must learn and follow. But doing so will free us from a blind adherence to or violation of these laws. We will become life with awareness of itself, which I believe is humanity's realized nature.

My red-green best.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Comrades, Here's as simple a triangle presentation as I can muster. Capra's triangle reductively breaks life's inseparable, indivisible pattern of organization into three parts so our minds can work with the concept.

PATTERN, MATTER, and PROCESS are the elements that occupy the triangle's angles. These elements/categories have been reductively extracted from the universal pattern of organization of the living systems of life.

The first two elements are so simple: PATTERN = network. All living systems are in the network pattern of organization. The MATTER category then contains all the physical stuff such as people and their materials.

If you doubt all living systems are in the network pattern internally and externally, check some out. I have been doing this for a dozen years and the network Pattern has always been present. Human forms of community and anarchism/communism are network-patterned internally and externally.

That all living systems are in the network pattern of organization seems obvious when you think about it, but this reality is a very recent cutting-edge revelation of the new sciences.

Now to PROCESS. Merging the physical stuff in a network pattern with its PROCESS is the most difficult part of the triangle to understand and use. Process refers to a living system's life activity, its being/doing, its "meaning" and "purpose." Process refers to the manner in which a living system connects with itself internally to generate the living system able to dynamically engage its environment and produce the energy and relations necessary to its being.

Thus a tern's internal material elements have self-organized in the network pattern into the form of a tern that is able to fly and "skritch" over my head and dive into the ocean for food as I, too, fish. The tern's internal relations have self-organized into the form with which it is able to engage its environment and "make a living." Other living systems' "stuff" is organized differently and they make their living differently, but all are in the pattern of life and Capra's triangle.

The triangle has reductively compartmentalized the inseparable unity of the organization of life so that we may understand this most profound and essential phenomenon. Triangle operators are to view their groups and actions in light of the three triangle elements, and then merge their findings into a live project that will tend to grow and reproduce as a living system--as a viable form of human community, as forms of anarchism/communism.

Strannik, I have changed two terms for the triangle's categories as presented by Capra in Chapter 7 of Web as a consequence of his follow-up work, The Hidden Connections. I have merged his categories for popular comprehension. Thus Pattern/Structure/Process has become Pattern/Matter/Process in the triangle I present, but the meanings of the categories does not change.

What the triangle potentially offers to the left is the ability for regular people to understand the organization of life and organize their lives accordingly in bottom-up revolutionary processes. Life is a bottom-up, self-organizing process, and so are anarchism and communism.

My red-green best.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Noxion wrote, "In order to be considered a scientific hypothesis, Capra's Triangle needs to make falsifiable predictions. What are they?"

Ckaihatsu's reply nails it: "Capra's triangle is more of a 'theoretical frame', meaning that repeated, consistent empirical evidence tends to support the construction, or theory." And this has certainly been the case, for my relentless research into all areas of the triangle has only served to confirm it. I'm after truth and not to sway others to a personal headtrip, and I have rigorously, vigorously, repeatedly tested Capra's triangle, and these tests have only confirmed its authenticity and revolutionary potential.

I'd be interested to see these tests.


I'd better supply a brief description of the triangle, which reductively models the inseparable unity of the universal pattern of organization of a living system. Place the "categories," or "elements" of PATTERN, MATTER, and PROCESS at the triangle's angles. All living systems are in the network Pattern of organization (think webs, grassroots democracy, communism), and the Matter category represents all the physical stuff. Now we come to the Process element, which is a living system's "economy." The Process element is a living system's life activity, how it makes its living, its environmental relations, its meaning, purpose. Process integrates the living system's internal being with its environment of other living systems and physical forces and enables it to gain the energy and relations necessary to maintain its being.

OK, I think I'm with you so far...


The Process element is tricky and represents the "genius of life." A living system's life activity is the means by which self-organizing (inner control of actions and behaviors) systems maintain a necessary dynamic interdependence with their surround. Life is a bootstrap of self-organizing living systems whose relations generated by a universal pattern of organization keep the organic, systemic process of life going. I bolded "organic, systemic process of life" because the materialist dialectic also views "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) as organic, systemic processes. See Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic for confirmation of this.

OK, but the internal systems that keep say, a single cell functioning are much different to the systems that keep an ecosystem functioning. Both involve the transit of matter and energy, but the avenues are many and different in each case.

And then when we come to the social sphere, there are higher-order considerations than matter and energy. There is the question of agency. No other creature seems to display the property of agency to quite the degree or magnitude that Homo sapiens does. We construct fictional worlds in our heads, while altering the landscape of the real one. Despite our soft, hairless skin and tiny teeth, humans can be found on every continent.

If humans cannot be confined to a single habitat or way of life, then what hope is there of confining them in a triangle?


Back to the triangle. Its seamless unity of Pattern/Matter/Process tells us that all life (and healthy human societies) consists of self-organized material systems network-patterned with what they do. Being and doing are thus inseparable. What something is is what it does. A bark beetle's physical form and relations is how it makes its living. A falcon is physically organized differently and makes its living differently. Beetles and falcons automatically assume their necessary environmental relations, though, while the physical organization of a human being says we must consciously create our natural living conditions in a pattern of organization we cannot see and find difficult to comprehend

So all life consists of self-organizing living systems that are beings materially network-patterned with what they do. The Process category--life activity--is how they dynamically integrate their internal self-organization with the "external" self-organization of the bootstrapping life process on Earth.

The problem is that living systems, such as ecosystems or cells are the products of evolution by natural selection. It is a messy and imperfect process, and it has low standards; "good enough to reproduce itself" is about it. The "blind watchmaker" to use Dawkins' metaphor, has not a single care for its creations. They exist because they are the ones whose parents were able to reproduce.

It seems a poor model on which to base an egalitarian society.


I don't agree that "The empirical should take primacy over the theoretical." They are a unity that must be honored together in praxis.

Theories are ten a penny. It is their concordance with the empirical facts that sifts the wheat from the chaff.


Noxion wrote, "If organization comes before intelligence ..." But organization is intelligent. It is a computation of sorts whereby living systems engage and "understand" themselves and each other and keep themselves and each other and the life process going.

But there is no computation. It happens because physical laws at the bottom give rise to living things which give rise to intelligence*. Think nested sets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nested_set_model) rather than triangles. It could be computed, but unless you're proposing that the universe is some kind of simulation or computer program (I don't think you are but I could be wrong), there is no need - the laws of physics just do what they do.

*To clarify, I don't think that the evolution of human intelligence was somehow inevitable or set out from the beginning. That would imply a teleology for which there is simply no evidence. I mean to say that to have intelligence, one must first have living things.


For that matter, the various forms of anarchism/communism would consist of self-organizing people network-patterned in forms of community internally and externally (other people and nature), wouldn't they?

They would be free to create their own systems, but they would be doing so as beings with agency operating within the context of wider society. That is a vastly different situation from what happens in the rest of nature.

[Lynx]

Society places us in a situation similar to nature, in that we are relatively powerless to change it. Our collective actions are almost always reactive.

[MarxSchmarx]

I google "capra's triangle" and all I get are references to leftist political boards.

So I need some basics clarified:

1. What is the scientific problem you are trying to solve?

2. How are your ideas an improvement on the existing scientific literature?

3. Explain your research without reference to highly polysyllabic jargon so that even a scientifically untrained grandmother can understand what you're doing.

4. Read this essay by American physicist Michio Kaku:
http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=254
Now tell me how it does/doesn't apply to this Capra's triangle.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I google "capra's triangle" and all I get are references to leftist political boards.

So I need some basics clarified:

1. What is the scientific problem you are trying to solve?

2. How are your ideas an improvement on the existing scientific literature?

3. Explain your research without reference to highly polysyllabic jargon so that even a scientifically untrained grandmother can understand what you're doing.

4. Read this essay by American physicist Michio Kaku:
http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=254
Now tell me how it does/doesn't apply to this Capra's triangle.
You'll have more luck if you google "fritjof capra". Hope that helps.

Edit note: This is not an endorsement. I only know Capra's name. I do not know anything about his theories or his work.

[Mr. Natural]

MarxSchmarx, Thanks for your interest and simple questions to which I can provide simple answers. I'm answering you prior to getting to Noxion's post, which will take longer. I just got my computer running decently again with the aid of a computer doctor who got rid of malware, spyware, viruses, etc.

"Capra's triangle" is my term for the triadic concept of life's universal pattern of organization that Capra first presents in Chapter 7 of his masterwork, The Web of Life (1996), which brings systems-complexity science to Earth for people such as us to understand. And use. Capra insists that the self-organization of matter to life on Earth applies to humans and our social systems, and he is right.

You asked: "What is the scientific problem you are trying to solve?" The problem is solved. Capra, a theoretical physicist, has created a "triangle": a triadic conceptual mental tool that models the universal pattern of organization of the living systems of the life process on Earth. I am trying to bring life's revolutionary self-organization to anarchist/communists who must consciously replicate nature's organization in human communities, and "Capra's triangle" models the manner by which the rest of life organizes to "come to life." So I know how to organize--it's the way the rest of life organizes--but I'm stumped as to how to bring this to others.

Human consciousness is reductive and conservative and misses the underlying organization of the things of life. Learning to "see" organization will accomplish a revolutionary paradigm shift in consciousness for the human species and constitute a human renaissance. As Marx noted somewhere, the human animal will become the human being.

Capra's triangle is an absolutely unprecedented, transcendent, revolutionary organizing tool. The Bolshevik, Alexander Bogdanov, came closest to Capra's project with his tektology: a universal science of organization.

You asked, "How are your ideas an improvement on existing scientific literature?" All my ideas are based in science and Marxism. I have improved on Capra, actually, in that he didn't apply his triangle to human social systems as he recommended. Capra is a left-liberal politically. But I'm a Marxist and immediately applied his triangle to social systems and revolutionary processes and the triangle worked and has continued to work through my intense scrutiny and refinements of the past dozen-plus years. The triangle is rooted in science and I subject it to rigorous scientific, philosophical tests.

You asked me to explain my research. The triangle makes a simple claim: that life is created by and composed of self-organizing living systems that are (def) self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do). Thus a cell's components have self-organized into the form of a cell that dynamically integrates with its environment to "make its living," and cells self-organize into "higher" levels of organization such as a peregrine falcon whose internal material parts have self-organized into the form of a falcon by which the parts and the falcon "make their living." Cells to organs to body, a falcon is top to bottom composed of living systems that "make their living" in life's universal pattern of organization, and this pattern is modeled by Capra's triangle.

So my research consists of relentlessly examining various living and social systems to see if they are in the pattern of organization of Capra's triangle. The living systems are always in this pattern, but when we get to human social systems we see that anarchism/communism accurately reflect natural, communal values, but that capitalism is a cancer of all forms of life. Life generates community; capitalism manufactures a runaway profit from the communites of life and human society.

Here's a simple "research project" for you, MarxSchmarx. Is life solely composed of living systems, and are all of them self-organized material systems network-patterned with what they do? If so, the triangle is a valid concept awaiting--begging for--development into a popular revolutionary organizing theory that will serve our many left tendencies and ends just as life's universal pattern of organization generates myriad forms and activities.

I didn't read Michio Kaku's essay on unified field theory, as that goes cosmic and I am interested in the manner by which matter has self-organized to emerge into the life process on Earth. We are children of the universe, but I focus on life on Earth.

I wrote a post on Michio Kaku some time ago and took him to severe task for enthusiatically gushing over new technological discoveries that would, for instance, enable a person to enter a room and immediately know everything about the other people in the room. In contrast, I immediately thought of the FBI, CIA, etc. using this technology. Kaku's politics are as lousy as his science is excellent.

My red-green best.

[Lynx]

Can you use Capra's Triangle to analyze the Mondragon cooperative?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I didn't read Michio Kaku's essay on unified field theory, as that goes cosmic and I am interested in the manner by which matter has self-organized to emerge into the life process on Earth. We are children of the universe, but I focus on life on Earth.

You should read it. It contains advice that is generally applicable to anyone advocating a particular wide-ranging scientific framework, not just those who propose unified field theories in physics. Any other scientist worth their salt would write something much the same. It's not very long, either.

[La Comédie Noire]

Humans have a great ability to find patterns, but are utterly terrible at assessing probability and complexity.

I fail to be convinced.

[Mr. Natural]

Lynx, You betcha you can use Capra's triangle to analyze the Mondragon Collectives. Are they in a bottom-up network pattern of organization internally (life's and anarchism's/communism's socio-economic pattern) that dynamically engages their environment to ecologically, sustainably provide the energy and materials necessary to their being? Are they organized in the pattern of life?

A mountain lion's parts have self-organized into the material "economic" system of a lion that makes it living in its environment according to the organization of its parts/self. The ticks that infest the "king of beasts" have self-organized into different beings that make their living off the lion's body according to the different organization of their parts, but ticks and lions are both organized as material systems network-patterned with what they do.

Anarchist/communist workplaces and communities are also material systems (people and materials) network-patterned with what they do--their life activity, meaning, purpose. An anarcho-syndicalist workplace would consist of self-organized people and their machines network-patterned to produce their product. Think of an anarchist auto workshop where people organize themselves and their tools to repair cars. People and tools must be organized properly to produce both anarchism and cars that run, and such an organization would agree with the organization of the rest of nature's live material systems.

Lynx, in your previous post you remarked, "Society places us in a situation similar to nature." This is so correct! A viable human society is living community, and nature is composed of little living communities that merge with other little living communities (think cell) to emerge into "higher" levels of organization and being that possess new properties and behaviors. Think cells to organs to bodies to the social and environmental systems within which the bodies live and make their living. But all these "higher" levels are grassrooted in the cell. Life is organized bottom up, top down, and roundabout, and all its systems and levels are organized in the pattern modeled by Capra's triangle.

Anarchist/communist societies would be grassrooted but emerge into higher levels of organization as complexity increases and makes necessary. These higher levels would always be grassrooted, though. "We shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (Marx and Engels, Manifesto)

So Capra's triangle is exactly the tool we need to gauge the viability of Mondragon. Is it in the pattern of life? I doubt its collectives truly have a bottom-up organization, although they probably attempt it. A most difficult problem for Mondragon is that it has to dynamically interact with the surrounding, dominant capitalist system. Thus its Process category (triangle) will be polluted. Mondragon's external relations must be capitalist to a degree, and this definitely affects its internal relations as well. Don't forget that Capra's triangle has reductively extracted three "categories," "elements" from life's inseparable organizational unity for comprehension and potential use, but a living system's internal parts are inseparably affected by its external relations. Being and doing are inseparable in a living system: what it is is what it does, and "external" capitalist relations affect internal being.

Living in capitalist societies sure as hell affects our being, doesn't it, Lynx? And thanks for your interest. My red-green best.

Marx was initially enthusiastic about collectives, but came to see that they must adjust their potential radicalism to embrace their surrounding capitalist relations.

[ckaihatsu]

Humans have a great ability to find patterns, but are utterly terrible at assessing probability and complexity.

I fail to be convinced.


Is this an innate, *biological* ability, like eating, or is it a *skill* that can be learned and improved with practice -- ?

I think you're being too quick to dismiss here.

[Mr. Natural]

La Comedie Noire observes, "Humans have a great ability to find patterns, but are utterly terrible at assessing probability and complexity."

I believe I would revise your statement to read "Humans have some ability to find patterns ..." Human beings and all the other living systems are complex adaptive systems, and these systems are pattern seekers. They must find the organizational, relational patterns with which they may maintain a dynamic being in the process of life. The rest of life finds these patterns automatically, unconsciously, and exists in these patterns automatically, unconsciously.

However, a limiting human perception/consciousness is not too good on patterns, and is quite poor on complexity, as you note. What we're dealing with here is that necessary human perception/consciousness paradigm shift we must manage in order to "see" life's organizational relations. Capra's triangle models this organization--the pattern of life and anarchism/communism--for popular, revolutionary comprehension and use.

That you "fail to be convinced" has to do with the deeply radical, profound, never-before-seen-or-imagined nature of Capra's triangle. With limited personal capabilities, I am trying to introduce something that is marvelous almost beyond belief.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, You are so right: learning to see patterns is a skill, and I will add that Capra's triangle is the tool we need to learn this skill.

Thanks. My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Noxion, Okay, I'll read the Kaku link MarxSchmarx provided. I have been hung up gratefully answering posts.

You wrote, "I'd be interested to see those tests [to which I've been subjecting the triangle." Well, Noxion, you can show yourself those tests in the same manner I've been testing the triangle. The triangle simply states that the living systems that compose and create the life process have a universal pattern of organization that can be reductively understood (the human manner) as Pattern/Matter/Process. So is life a product of living systems: self-organized, integrated wholes that exist in dynamic interdependence with their environment of other living systems and physical forces? Every living thing I check out is a living system by this definition. Then I ask myself: does this living system consist of self-organized Matter network-Patterned with its Process (its life activity; what it does) as the triangle models? Every natural living system I have engaged meets this standard--the standard human social systems must satisfy as well. Are we not life?

But when I check most of our social systems out, I find they have been fatally compromised by capitalist relations that are inimical to life and a healthy society. Anarchism and communism, though, satisfy life's organizational requirements.

So not only can you apply "my" tests yourself, this ultimately becomes mandatory. All life consists of self-organizing systems such as yourself, and you must engage and challenge the triangle and make it your own. Then, in company with other triangle operators, you may design and activate new, anarchist/communist forms of revolutionary community and revolutionary processes. Life goes to revolution all the time with its phase transitions, emergences, and evolutionary processes.

You noted, "the internal systems that keep say, a single cell functioning are much different to the systems that keep an ecosystem functioning. Both involve the transit of matter and energy, but the avenues are many and different in each case." Well, Noxion, the details of life's systems are near-infinite, but their organization is the same. Murray Gell-Mann's observation that life is "surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity" applies. Human perception/consciousness readily engages the things of life's surface complexity, but it misses that deep organizational simplicity that underlies the things. Atoms-molecules-cells-organs-bodies-social systems-ecosystems-biosphere have the same pattern of organization. As Capra puts it, his living systems theory offers a "unified view of mind, matter, and life."

I've been testing this since early 1999, and Capra is not only right, but he succeeded beyond his dreams. His triangle is indescribably but simply brilliant, and Capra with his liberal politics misses the full, revolutionary significance of his creation.

You note, "And then when we come to the social sphere ... there is the question of agency .... We construct fictional worlds in our heads, while altering the landscape of the real one." Yes, humans are conscious agents, and our consciousness has been blind to organization. Unlike the rest of life, which enjoys an automatic organizational, "ecological mind," we must consciously organize in a pattern to which we are currently blind and ignorant. Fortunately, the pattern of life is the pattern of community and we create community all the time, albeit without any understanding of the "rules." The organization of community is thus unknown to us, while living in community is our heart's desire. Humans are intensely social individuals.

You wrote that the organization of ecosystems or cells "seems like a poor model on which to base an egalitarian society." Well, as the rest of life self-organizes together in various forms of community, I must strongly disagree and insist that life is, metaphorically, intensely "democratic."

I wrote that organization is intelligent computation, to which you disagreed. But isn't the adaptation to which you refer a form of computation? Isn't this a natural computation that we humans must learn to consciously, intelligently reproduce as we design and create our social systems?

A final point. Capra's triangle is only a triangle because he has reductively extracted three elements from life's inseparable organizational unity. There is no innate significance to the form of a triangle.

Thanks again for the thread and your continuing interest. My red-green best.

A final, personal note. Fritjof The Cat died of a heart attack in my back bedroom during the night. I read Capra's Web of Life in early spring 1999, saw the triangle, and then began moving around the West in an attempt to find other triangle operators. First stop was Clearlake, CA., and when a half-starved, half-grown cat appeared on the porch, I decided to adopt him as my first pet and named him after Fritz The Cat/Fritjof Capra. Then I had a vet take his "fritzers." Fritz The Cat was 13 years old, and the sorrow I feel at his loss deepens as I feel the impending loss of the human species.

R.I.P. Fritjof The Cat. Get some life, human species!

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, You are so right: learning to see patterns is a skill, and I will add that Capra's triangle is the tool we need to learn this skill.

Thanks. My red-green best.


Thanks for the thanks, MN -- I need to raise a couple of relatively minor, yet significant points of difference here:





Well, as the rest of life self-organizes together in various forms of community, I must strongly disagree and insist that life is, metaphorically, intensely "democratic."


Your line, while refreshingly positive and counter-reductionist, unfortunately blends the natural with the human-social *too* much, as here, where it ignores the *darker* side of nature -- predation -- which humanity is capable of *transcending*, given a mass-conscious control over our economics and productive organizing.





The organization of community is thus unknown to us, while living in community is our heart's desire. Humans are intensely social individuals.


And this assertion sidesteps what's crucially distinct about humanity -- its socially *productive* abilities, especially as through industry. "Community" doesn't cut it as a form of organization if it doesn't specifically address how *industrial* production is to be organized outside of the commodity system.

[Lynx]

Lynx, You betcha you can use Capra's triangle to analyze the Mondragon Collectives. Are they in a bottom-up network pattern of organization internally (life's and anarchism's/communism's socio-economic pattern) that dynamically engages their environment to ecologically, sustainably provide the energy and materials necessary to their being? Are they organized in the pattern of life?
From what I recall from Richard Wolff's description, they are democratically organized from the bottom up. They have a set of principles that call for every worker-owner to participate and function as managers. This is not seamless, some workers appear to be fulltime managers and a pay ratio averaging 5:1 was approved by workers in each enterprise. (Meaning that 'executives' can earn as much as 5 times what the lowest paid worker earns)

The Mondragon Group is involved in Industry, Retail, Finance and Knowledge. They have their own bank, university and training centers. They invest part of their revenues into research and development. When they automate part of their manufacturing they offer displaced workers re-training or early retirement with full benefits. Do these endeavors speak to their engaging of their environment and communities in order to be sustainable?

As a co-operative, they are not using a private shareholder model or privately run model. Thus, their internal objectives are different and this is reinforced by the principles they have developed democratically.


A mountain lion's parts have self-organized into the material "economic" system of a lion that makes it living in its environment according to the organization of its parts/self. The ticks that infest the "king of beasts" have self-organized into different beings that make their living off the lion's body according to the different organization of their parts, but ticks and lions are both organized as material systems network-patterned with what they do.
According to Wikipedia, Mondragon is a corporation and a federation of worker co-operatives based in the Basque region of Spain. They compete in a global market. They are a network of businesses involved in the sectors mentioned above and externally, that is what they do.


So Capra's triangle is exactly the tool we need to gauge the viability of Mondragon. Is it in the pattern of life? I doubt its collectives truly have a bottom-up organization, although they probably attempt it.
Their objectives include job security, income security and treatment of workers as equal participants. Subsequently, their revenues and profits are directed towards these objectives. Top driven organizations do not usually have these priorities. Viability? They have been in business for over 50 years.


A most difficult problem for Mondragon is that it has to dynamically interact with the surrounding, dominant capitalist system. Thus its Process category (triangle) will be polluted. Mondragon's external relations must be capitalist to a degree, and this definitely affects its internal relations as well. Don't forget that Capra's triangle has reductively extracted three "categories," "elements" from life's inseparable organizational unity for comprehension and potential use, but a living system's internal parts are inseparably affected by its external relations. Being and doing are inseparable in a living system: what it is is what it does, and "external" capitalist relations affect internal being.
To remain competitive they will buy from private sources that are more efficient than their own. I don't know if this has led to the development of their subsidiaries, whose workers are not owners. There is debate whether this situation should continue.
Mondragon will reduce, retool or close operations that are not profitable, just like any capitalist firm would. They do not sack their workers, however, as mentioned earlier. Workers as owners would naturally not find that kind of policy acceptable.


Living in capitalist societies sure as hell affects our being, doesn't it, Lynx?
It is interesting that workers in China do not understand Mondragon's business model. They have been affected to a greater degree, it would seem, than workers in other countries.

~
This analysis lacks detail on Mondragon's operations, would going into greater depth be useful?

[MarxSchmarx]

Mr. Natural:

Thanks for the responses despite your troubles, and I now have a bit of a better sense about what you are up to. In essence, I agree that there are something very much like universal patterns to how life organizes. I have not read the chapter of Capra's book you mention, in part because I also suspect it requires understanding the context of that work which in googling around thanks to megamantrotsky's suggeswtion, appears to be a vast literature. Nevertheless, I've come to the conclusion that it seems as if Capra's theory is one among many - for a competing approach, see, e.g.,

http://exploringcomplexity.blogspot.com/2011/12/discussion-of-thecommon-patterns-of.html

Another example might be something like Stephan Wolfram's theory of science.

The merits of the latter approaches have the ideas of being conceived of somewhat systematically. I admittedly still fail to see the predictive ability of this process/pattern/matter thing. For instance, what phenomenon does it explain that can't be explained by, e.g., the "modern synthesis"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis
?

There are, to be sure, some points that could use some clarification. First, what if your science were wrong? The merits of communism/anarchism seem to me independent of the conclusions of natural science. I get that, for example, cooperation probably evolved through natural selection. However, so too do viruses and other parasites that cause tremendous damage. In short, just because biological systems organize a certain way, that doesn't mean we ought to, or even do in fact, follow such organization.

The second issue is in essence that if this triangle is so effective in describing human social evolution, it should apply to other dimensions like, let's say, the evolution of language or the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The fact that few educated people have heard of it, or that a large majority of historians/anthropologists/etc.. seem to be able to carry on answering questions like this without reference to the triangle, suggests to me that something is amiss. Even Engels in the 19th century had a decent theory of both processes (albeit woefully incomplete). So, to repeat to some degree the earlier point, what would your theory, applied to these classical questions, be able to answer that more conventional approaches cannot?

[Strannik]

I'd like to outline my point of view. While I believe that Capra's trinity of criterions might be useful for defining living systems, I'm not so sure that it can be so easily identified with Marxism. Some conclusions of his book seem troubling. In "Web of Life" he criticizes 17th - 19th century revolutionary bourgeois science as "mechanist" and the reader is left with general impression that this period did not contribute anything of value. To me it seems, that this analytic period of science increased unbelievably our understanding of nature and made the "new" science possible in the first place.

You, Mr. Natural are also leaving the impression that you consider bourgeois society to be "unnatural" in its entirety; an accident of history. Marx however seems to believe that it was a very necessary and useful period in humanity's social development. Bourgeois philosophy helped to destroy the illusion of "natural order" of feudalism and bourgeois economics creates the material and sociological prerequisites for ascendancy to a higher social form.

It seems to me that Marx considers bourgeois era to be "analytical" period of human history, where we "took the world apart" and criticised theoretically our blindly evolved historical and cultural notions. It broke feudal class society into atomic individuals; earth, wind and fire into chemical elements; economy into transactions; specieses into genes etc. And I believe all this has indeed increased our understanding of actual reality.

The problem is that bourgeoise are incapable of moving beyond this analysis. The ideological tools it used to break apart the feudal order have become new myths. The historical task of the proletariat is to take the parts and re-build the world on rational basis without losing the deeper understanding of its components. For Marx, future communism is not return to prehistoric tribal communism; it is communism of conscious individuals freely associating in controlling and managing the world.

All this does not mean that Capra's triangle (or trinity?) would be useless as the principle for political organization. Your politics might well be both revolutionary and materialist, but it seems to me that marxism sees the world history with its revolutions and eras on highest level as a fundamentally continuous process.

[Thirsty Crow]

I
All this does not mean that Capra's triangle (or trinity?) would be useless as the principle for political organization. Your politics might well be both revolutionary and materialist, but it seems to me that marxism sees the world history with its revolutions and eras on highest level as a fundamentally continuous process.
I really tried to read all that was posted by Mr. Natural and understand it, but admittedly it flew over my head quite a bit.

Why quote this part of your post? Because, intuitively, it seems to be in alignment with my (yet another) "intuitive" remark: that this general approach, of basing social and political organization on the patterns of "self-organization" of life (cell? species? eco-system?) is hopelessly vague becasue it doesn't account for the difference between the dynamics of social interaction and the dynamics in natural environment. It collapses the one into the other, and as you poignantly point out, the result is that capitalist society is presented as something unnatural - an approach I would be wary of.

Of course, there's a good chance that I'm misunderstanding something here (sometimes people on this forum make me feel really dumb :lol:).
So, as MarxSchmarx also requested, can a proponent of this approach (I guess only Mr. Natural is an active proponent here) outline, in as ordinary language as possible, how social organization could in the first place mimick the self-organization of life?

[ckaihatsu]

From all of Mr. Natural's posts to-date, the *only* portion that pierces the veil of vagueness and puts forth something of a concrete approach to politics is this, recent part:





A complete evolutionary theory would have to embrace the phenomena of self-organization and emergence as well as natural selection with mutation. A complete Marxism would also embrace self-organization ("associations will be formed"), emergence (revolutionary groups and processes) and natural selection with mutation (engagement with the capitalist society-at-large and its constantly changing conditions).

[Thirsty Crow]

From all of Mr. Natural's posts to-date, the *only* portion that pierces the veil of vagueness and puts forth something of a concrete approach to politics is this, recent part:
Which, as far as I can say, does not really bring nothing radically new to the table.
Marxists have argued for working class self-organization (and the role of the revolutionary organization in that same process).

Emergence, also. It seems to me that particularly left communist currents have taken up this issue.

And egagement with the changing conditions of the capitalist society, of course, that's a given (though some orgs and individuals might make it seem as if they were stuck in time, failing to account for more recent transformations in the class composition of both capital and labour).

[ckaihatsu]

Which, as far as I can say, does not really bring nothing radically new to the table.
Marxists have argued for working class self-organization (and the role of the revolutionary organization in that same process).

Emergence, also. It seems to me that particularly left communist currents have taken up this issue.

And egagement with the changing conditions of the capitalist society, of course, that's a given (though some orgs and individuals might make it seem as if they were stuck in time, failing to account for more recent transformations in the class composition of both capital and labour).


I have no differences here.

[Mr. Natural]

I'm much appreciative of all the feedback and the open but critical minds you are providing, Comrades. Now to the posts, each of which needs an answer.

First, though, I want to point out that the evolution of the sciences of organization died in the mid-1990s. The sciences to which I refer, in order of "evolutionary" appearance are Darwin's evolution, a new Einsteinian physics, cosmology, cybernetics, chaos theory, and their synthetic culmination--systems-complexity science. So major, mindblowing progress was being made in coming to grips with the organization of life, society, and the universe, and this has ended. I attribute this "death of the new science" to the advance of capitalism and its institutions to a global, entropic, reductive state that shuts out living relations, and to the amazing ability of the world's top systems theorists to ignore The System within which they think and live.

The Santa Fe Institute is the center for systems-complexity research, and it has become respectable and conservative. Again: capitalist relations rule and human beings, science, and research institutions are all parts of the global capitalist whole and are increasingly molded in its image, organization, values, and practices.

I believe it is accurate to state that our present situation is akin to a science fiction tale wherein an alien force (capitalism) has invaded Earth anc captured all forms of life. The organization of capitalism is opposed to the organization of life.

Now to ckaihatsu's points. He noted a passage of mine in which I pointed out that the organization of life and communism are similar, and wrote that I had "pierced the veil of vagueness and put forth something of a concrete approach to politics" in contrast to my other babbles.

ckaihatsu's comment points to a very important aspect of triangle use. Capra's triangle does not provide specifics or details: it enables triangle operators to organize their minds in the pattern of life and thereby adequately "see" the organizational relations of a particular situation or problem and provide their own details appropriate to their situation. The triangle enables human beings to play a decent game of God. Matter has self-organized to life on Earth, and the triangle enables its operators to self-organize themselves and their materials into a living system--an anarchist/communist living system.

Human perception/consciousness/mind want details--specifics. That's how we think, and it is inadequate. When Rosa L denounces dialectics as "mysticism," she is attempting to do away with the unseen, sloppy organizational relations of life. She wants precision, dammit, as we all do, but that isn't life.

Want some living red-green precision? Apply Capra's triangle to your situation and come up with your own, targeted details. Are you attempting to get OWS to dig beneath Wall Street to engage the capitalist system Wall Street rode in on? Get your group together and brainstorm with the triangle of life and society and generate the details of a "Capitalism Exposed" campaign. The details, strategies, and tactics you come up with will be specific to your situation, and if they are organized in the pattern of life, your project will tend to grow and reproduce. And when such a project starts to go off the rails, as all living systems do, its conscious human operators will be able to adjust it as necessary.

Humans and our social systems are self-organized material systems and we must learn to organize in the pattern of life's self-organized material systems. It's really that simple.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Lynx, What little I have heard of Mondragon recently is that it has gone downhill, and if so, its external relations within the capitalist system are surely the major factor. As for Mondragon's many "details," Mondragon will be a living system if it popularly organizes from the bottom up and generates higher levels of grassrooted organization as complexity increases and requires, and if it engages its environment to generate a sustainable, ecological profit.

The living systems--communities--of life self-organize into a pattern internally and externally that generates the energy and materials necessary to their being. A living system is an economic system. All of life goes to work and makes a living.

This brings me to a point from ckaihatsu I forgot to answer. ckaihasu wrote that my theory "ignores the darker side of nature--predation--which humanity is capable of transcending." This "darker side of nature" is a human consciousness concept: we are superficially perceiving nature's relations as we experience them. These are just organizational relations, though. Mother Nature is communicating with herself and keeping her critical organizational relations going, and predator-prey relations are communal, coupled relations. The mountain lion and the deer herd are keeping each other going.

We cannot ignore the nature of our consciousness, though. We humans really do possess a self-reflective consciousness and a self, whereas the rest of nature largely exists and is affected at the species level. Nature doesn't hyper-emphasize individuality. There is no separate life.

So we must eliminate predator-prey relations from our social systems, and that means capitalism must go and be replaced with anarchist/communist forms of community. No longer may the bourgeiosie prey upon the proletariat within a system that preys on us all.

This human individual self we all feel and see presents major problems to humanity, though, for it tends blind us to our essential social relations. We are social individuals, and Capra's triangle makes those social relations visible to we who must consciously, viably relate to each other.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Menocchio, Thanks for your interest and effort. Please believe me when I say other posters also make me feel dumb. I have some skills at seeing systems and their organization, but am often poor at the details other comrades readily grasp. I have a dozen books on the Russian Revolution and Capital on my desk awaiting winter homework sessions.

We all have much to learn. Obviously.

You wanted me to "account for the difference between the dynamics of societal interaction and the dynamics in natural environments." You note my approach "collapses the one into the other ... with the result that capitalist society is presented as something unnatural."

Menocchio, I am definitely collapsing human social organization into natural organization. Humanity is the product of the self-organization of matter on Earth into living systems, and these living systems have a universal pattern of organization we must follow. Beneath all our conceits, delusions, and exceptionalities, we are matter that has self-organized into a living system, and we must follow the "laws of life" if we are to continue.

You are pointing to the deepest, most radical, revolutionary understanding of what I refer to as a red-green theory of life, community, and revolution: humans are self-organized material systems who must "mechanically" understand and employ "rules of life" we cannot see. We humans are "special" in a sense--our self-relective consciousness is "special"--but all of our being, including our consciousness, is generated by the organizational "rules of life" the other living beings automatically and more obviously follow.

So we are "mechanical" beings who must learn to be conscious "mechanics of living systems." Capra's triangle is our tool. If we accomplish this we will be realizing our nature and potential and living as life with awareness of itself. The human individual will live in a natural state that is an exalted state and then will die, as always, but such lives will have been much more fully lived.

The preceding remarks aren't "utopian": they can be made real by consciously applying the rules of life to our lives--the rules the rest of life automatically honors.

Menocchio, I don't understand your objection to my observation that capitalism is unnatural. Humanity has gotten way off track, and our socio-economic system of capitalism acts as a cancer of living systems. Why isn't the simple observation that capitalism produces for profit, nature produces for community, satisfactory? Capitalism is really, really unnatural, and that's why we're rebelling against it and why a host of catastrophes now hangs over humanity.

The really simple question to ask and answer is: Does life consist of living systems that are self-organized matter network-patterned with their life activity (what they do)? If so, Capra's triangle is a go.

I'm taking a break to go fishing on the tide. I will definitely answer the remaining posts within a day. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, where's the Kool-Aid -- ? I'm first in line...! = D

Without meaning to edge *too* much into your spotlight, MN, I'll add that, for any practitioner, there's a certain benefit to *initiative*, if only so that one doesn't get bogged down in endless details and the over-thinking of scholasticism.

I'll also posit that there's an *emergent* hierarchy of (self-)consciousness, one that we can willfully take control of, that animals in their natural setting *can't*, since they are necessarily in a stream-of-consciousness with their environment. This basic kind of awareness doesn't confer separate, discrete moments for self-reflection, for most species.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test


universal context

http://postimage.org/image/fn8hqaxrh/


philosophical abstractions

http://postimage.org/image/i7hg698j1/

[Mr. Natural]

MarxSchmarx, Sorry for the delay. I had to catch some fish as my dog romped in the surf. Done.

Now to your well-considered questions that, however, misunderstand the nature of the triangle. It models the universal pattern by which matter forms living systems and comes to life on Earth. That includes us and our social systems, and this is a deeply radical and accurate concept. All the natural living systems and the effective human social systems I see are organized in the triangle's pattern--the pattern of community.

Perhaps this will help: underneath it all, people are self-organized matter network-patterned with their life activity (making livings consciously). We have self-oranized through numerous hierarchical levels and emergences to get to our conscious state. Cells to organs to body to social systems, that's us.

This brings me to what I call neo-Darwian evolutionary theory and you refer to as the "modern synthesis." Thanks for the link, by the way. The "modern synthesis" is correct as far as it goes but is grossly incomplete. It misses self-organization and emergence, and the link you provided stated the modern synthesis believes in gradual evolutionary change, while science knows damn well that there have been incidents of punctuated equilibrium such as the Cambrian Explosion that have dramatically affected evolution.

In an earlier post I mentioned that science had stopped evolving as the capitalist system gained global dominance. That evolutionary theory continues to ignore self-organization and emergence is but one example of how rigid and conservative science has become.

Everything is steadily becoming more conservative. A global capitalism is an entropic system, and there is little negation of the negation remaining, particularly in the West.

Capra spends much time on self-organization and emergence, but doesn't insist on a marriage between self-organization, emergence, and natural selection with random mutation. This comes from several major figures at the Santa Fe Institute such as Stuart Kauffman, and I deem it "obviously right." I have a shorthand for this complete evolutionary theory: " s-o/S-O." This shows life is centered in a self-organization that is interdependent with the surrounding self-organizing systems (natural selection), with the slash representing the emergence and evolution that results. Life is a bootstrap of self-organizing systems that keep themselves and the life process going.

The scientific concept of self-organization was first revealed by Ilya Prigogine in 1967 with his theory of dissipative systems, and uncannily replicated a year later by Maturana and Varela's theory of autopoiesis (self-making). The concept of self-organization is central to Capra's living systems theory, but seems hardly known nowadays outside certain circles. This is shocking!

As for emergence, think "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Systems come together and create new systems with new properties and behaviors absent in the parts. These are emergent properties. Living hierarchical levels of organization have emergent properties, too. Thus individuals form groups that can come together in a political party or movement that can ...

But the whole point of Capra's triangle is that it in potential enables regular persons to sit down and mentally arrange the persons and materials of a project in a manner that will bring the project to life. This should be done with the others of the project, and we actually do this all the time, but not consciously. A formal brainstorming session, for example, operates by rules that mimic life's and the triangle's organization.

As one self-organizing, network-patterned material system dynamically interdependent with you, I offer my red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, I want to respond more fully to your post tomorrow, for it opens the door to discussing the uncanny resemblance between nature's and anarchist/communist forms of organization and the materialist dialectic.

Unfortunately, few have read Bertell Ollman, Marxist professor at NYU, whose Dance of the Dialectic (2003) seems definitive in this matter. The very young Marx, it seems, encountered the Hegelian philosophy of internal relations (world as internally related whole consisting of internally related wholes) and dialectical categories and came to dialectically understand "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) as organic, systemic processes.

And life is an organic, systemic process, as science shows and Marx came to know, and his "Marxism" is thus informed by materialist dialectics throughout.

And life and anarchism/communism are self-organized, bottom-up forms of community as is your body, Strannik.

Marxism, Capra's triangle, anarchism/communism, the cells in your body, and the materialist dialectic do intersect, and the new sciences of organization show this is true.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

MarxSchmarx, I got around to that Michio Kaku link, but didn't think it really applied to what I'm trying to do. Kaku is addressing professional scientists whose language is mathematics, while I'm a layperson interested in the philosophy of science.

As Kaku noted, the scientific language of nature is mathematics, while I'm interested in nature's organization--its syntax. I'm interested in developing a viable revolutionary organizing theory and bringing it into praxis, and I can't speak math.

You mentioned Stephen Wolfram, who was a regular at the Santa Fe Institute and who identified four classes of systemic behavior: fixed, periodic, chaotic, and (a Wolfram discovery), a zone of "life" intermediate between chaotic and fixed where systemic adjustments can be made. This fourth zone became Chris Langton's (he's father of Artificial Life) "edge of chaos."

As stated, I'm very much a layperson when it comes to "doing science." You are surely advanced of me, but I'd like to strongly recommend you read Roger Lewin's Complexity: Life At the Edge of Chaos (1999). This book gave me a "feel" for life's organization. It enabled me to "see" that there are lots of critical organizational relations perking under the surface of life's "things." This work by a Pulitzer Prize winner investigates the scientific antics of the amazing minds that occupied the Santa Fe Insitute during its brief heyday, and it made science "come alive" to me.

A companion book is M. Mitchell Waldrop's Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992). These books are written for a popular readership, Wolfram appears in both, and they are fun reads.

You are looking for the triangle's predictive potential, but that's not what it's for. Capra's triangle is organizational, not predictive. The only prediction the triangle makes is that if you design your project in the pattern of life and the triangle, your project will tend to "come to life" and develop and reproduce. The members of such groups will design and maintain their projects to accomplish this.

You asked, "What if your science were wrong?" It isn't. It is all based in the scientific method and verified by it. However, this is a slippery, sloppy science of living organization and as such presents difficulties akin to the problems Einstein's relativity and quantum theories presented to our poor little reductive minds. Miraculously but scientifically, Capra's triangle models the universal pattern of organization for all this living stuff.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, I went back over your last post and it seems any disagreements we might be having are rooted in a miscomprehension of the purpose of the triangle. Capra's triangle is organizational: it models the process by which matter comes to life on Earth, and seeing this organization seems to require a paradigm shift in consciousness. We need to learn to "see" and "feel" organization.

Yes, Marx saw history as a continuous process--one that had reached a point where humanity had come together socially in an economic system that produced the goods but destroyed social relations. Marx's communism was to preserve the sociality and its productive capacity but would replace private ownership and exploitation with communal relations.

Capra's triangle models this. It models the organization of the living systems of life, which self-organize into a network pattern (quintessentially communist concepts) that dynamically integrates them with the rest of life. This is internal and external communism and the triangle models this pattern of organization.

Capra doesn't dismiss mechanism or reductionism, but points out they are grossly inaccurate and inadequate taken alone. They ignore the organizational relations that birth life's "things." Mechanism/reductionism taken by themselves are dead, but they are essential aspects of understanding life, which consists or organized things. But mechanism alone takes the organization of life out of life's stuff and kills life.

Darwin's evolutionary theory opened the door to seeing life as a developmental process, but it remains mired in reductive concepts. Current evolutionary theory believes evolution is solely based in natural selection with random mutation, and this is an external, deeply alienating concept. It says we and other living systems are hammered together by outside forces. It says there is no you in you, Strannik. It says you are not self-organized in dynamic interdependence with others and the environment, but are a product of external organization. Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory views life as dictatorship.

Bullshit! My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Menocchio, You suggested the major problem in Marxism when you wrote that traditionally, "Marxists have argued for working class self-organization."

That is so true, and it is equally true that Marxists have been unable to organize socialism/communism anywhere. Obviously, Marxists do not know how to organize communism and revolutionary processes, and not so obviously, Capra's triangle is the corrective to our revolutionary paralysis.

You affirmed emergence as well as self-organization in your post, and we self-organizing communists need to develop some revolutionary emergences, don't we?

Have I mentioned Capra's triangle? My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'm second in line for the kool-aid. Any flavor but lemon will do.

This isn't my spotlight, by the way. It's ours. We're anarchists and commies and other good stuff. My job is to bring the triangle to others so they may learn and use it. Everyone else's job is to engage the material and rigorously check it out. Am I a "Derrick Jensen" or a "Joseph Dietzgen"?

No, we aren't going to do a fucking poll.

In any case, we're all lefties and we have some major work (and fun) to accomplish. I have learned much from others and have particularly appreciated being able to engage others in this thread.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'm second in line for the kool-aid. Any flavor but lemon will do.

This isn't my spotlight, by the way. It's ours. We're anarchists and commies and other good stuff. My job is to bring the triangle to others so they may learn and use it. Everyone else's job is to engage the material and rigorously check it out. Am I a "Derrick Jensen" or a "Joseph Dietzgen"?

No, we aren't going to do a fucking poll.

In any case, we're all lefties and we have some major work (and fun) to accomplish. I have learned much from others and have particularly appreciated being able to engage others in this thread.

My red-green best.


Very good, and thanks.

In that spirit, then, I'll just remind you that you have a standing offer in front of you for any kind of graphical depiction you may deem to be appropriate.

You may want an illustration that's concise and ready-to-go for such interventions and exchanges as these -- let me know. I would need a basic sketch to get things rolling, or at least a description of one.

Take care, all the best.

[Strannik]

Just wanted to point out that I have read some Ollman on his homepage. I think that my philosophical outlook is not quite the same. Basically I agree with "laws" of dialectics, but I believe that everything dialectics says is true for our conceptual model of external reality, not external material reality (or "nature") itself. We cannot make theories that decree what external reality should "be" like and claim to be materialists (something Engels and Ollman seem to do). Its the opposite, our theories, our abstract models have to be constantly re-checked, to make sure they are still congruent with reality. There can be no "final theory" that we can develop and then stop interacting with external reality. This interaction will always be a requirement to make sure our theories are congruent with actual situation.

And this is how I understand marxist method to be from Grundrisse (chapter "Method of political economy"). Marx does not criticize bourgeois economists because they analyze or abstract separate units from economy. He criticizes them because once they find the smallest unit, they use it to explain everything.

Or in natural sciences - it is not wrong, as such, to research genes as separate units. You can gain a lot of knowledge about genes that way. But it is certainly wrong to explain society solely based on genes - it's just one of many determinants at that level.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, Thanks for the continuing engagement. However, it appears everyone is still missing the mark on the materialist dialectic and the nature of Capra's triangle.

Marx's materialist dialectic, as explained by Ollman, understands life and society as organic, systemic processes, which they are. Marx gained this deeply radical understanding from Hegel's philosophy of internal relations (world as internally related whole composed of internally related wholes; this is in agreement with the new science) and Hegelian dialectical categories.

Thus Marx and Engels came to define the dialectic in Anti-Duhring as "the science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought." Dialectics was to encompass the natural material relations of life and society.

So Engels was to write "We have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn [nature's] laws and apply them correctly." (Dialectics of Nature). Engels also stressed "There could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it." (preface, second edition of Anti-Duhring)

The whole "Capra's triangle project" has to do with life having a universal pattern of organization, modeled by the triangle, that humanity must learn to consciously apply to its social systems and relations with nature. This would constitute a scientific, revolutionary development of Engels' preceding remarks.

As for those genes, Strannik, it is their organization into a genome in the pattern of life that brings them to life. A genome is a living system of sorts. What is its pattern of organization? Its pattern of organization will be the same as for the rest of life and healthy human social systems. As Capra's triangle models, the genome will be matter (the genes) self-organized in the network pattern with what it does:a genome sets the parameters and guides the development of living beings. This genomic organization reflects the organization of the triangle's three elements: Pattern (network), Matter (physical stuff) and Process (life activity; what it does; meaning, purpose).

A human commune would be Pattern (network), Matter (people and materials), and Process (what it does: how it engages the external world to make its living and maintain its people and living relations).

The surfperch I hope to catch today are self-organized matter network-patterned into the form, thus behaviors, by which they make their living. These perch have fins, while birds have wings for their different environment. The network-patterned matter of living systems has self-organized into the forms that enable them to make their living in their particular environments.

Humans must learn to self-organize into the pattern of life and communism, and Capra's triangle models this pattern for popular understanding and use. However, human perception/consciousness sees things but misses their critical organization, and I have been unable to breach this human "consciousness barrier" with Capra's triangle. Yet.

Dammit, it seems like this would be relatively easy. We humans create community--we self-organize into forms by which we make our lives together--all the time. The farmers' market I will attend later today is a form of community--one of the many forms of community we humans often naturally, automatically design. However, it seems that to mention intentionally designing forms of community according to the "rules of life" renders the human species and revolutionaries nearly braindead.

The problem is not one of intelligence, but the nature of human intelligence. We are reductively but not organizationally perceptive, thus intelligent. All is not lost, though, for this "organizational perceptual problem" has already been tackled and effectively surmounted by humans in the new physics. Now we have to find ways to "see," engage, understand, and employ life's organizational relations.

Capra's triangle, the new sciences of organization, Marxism, and the materialist dialectic are a natural unity. Mr. Natural says its time to Get Natural!

My red-green best.

[Strannik]

"Marx's materialist dialectic, as explained by Ollman, understands life and society as organic, systemic processes, which they are."

Well, I have been too much influenced by Wittgenstein and anti-dialectics. :) For me, we can say at most that "interpreting concept of life as an organic process seems to be congruent with Actuality at current point of observation". Marx might have believed that dialectics is the "general law of motion" of Nature itself in his youth, but I think his outlook on the relationship between Actuality and theories concernign it was different by the time he wrote "Grundrisse". For me, history of dialectical materialism was following: Hegel noticed correctly the laws of evolution of general social Thought, but could not explain why they are what they are; Marx and Engels understood that they are caused by Nature, but mistakenly believed that evolution of Thought mirrors the evolution of Nature; finally, thanks to Wittgenstein, Rosa L and anti-dialectical crowd understood correctly the difference between Thought and Nature, but did not notice that this relationship will cause precisely the kind of evolution in social Thought they were criticising as "non-existent mysticism" in the Nature.

But I better leave the philosophy aside before I stray too far from Capra :) When it comes to practical social organization, it seems to me, that materiality is not under question - people and resources determine a part of what one has to do for success. Network pattern of similar units makes also sense - units can learn from each other's experiences and when one is destroyed, others can take its place. This is why life is so successful at adapting despite not being centrally directed. Where the philosophy can make a difference is the process. To me its seems that in order to adapt itself to changing environment, each unit has to gather, process and adapt information continuously. Should it ever abandon this process and close itself to external information, it stops adapting and is ultimately destroyed. And this is the most difficult part in creating an organization: materiality is given to everyone, pattern emerges by itself, because others imitate you when your'e successful. But creating and maintaining the correct process is the most important part and where organizations usually fail.

[ckaihatsu]

Where the philosophy can make a difference is the process. To me its seems that in order to adapt itself to changing environment, each unit has to gather, process and adapt information continuously.




But creating and maintaining the correct process is the most important part and where organizations usually fail.


This post is reminding me of my critique of MN's line -- that it veers towards the biological-determinism side of things. Here's why:

While the natural environment is the default physical surroundings, especially for animals, the same is *not* true for people, since we are usually part of a social organization that's *intentional*, and that has reshaped our surrounding physical environments.

To model our behavior on that which exists in nature is to be too *passive*, and to *forfeit* our social-active potential as part of humanity's ongoing intentional construction of the world around ourselves.

[Mr. Natural]

Ckaihatsu's post gives me some material with which I can attempt to illuminate the perceptual/conceptual/consciousness difficulties engendered by my presentations of Capra's triangle and life's organizational relations.

ckaihatsu finds "MN's line ... veers toward the biological determinism side of things." Well, it does, but this is not a vulgar determinism. Matter has self-organized into living systems on Earth, and humans are self-organized matterial systems who must learn to organize in the pattern that brings matter and humans and our materially-based social systems to life. Are we not material living systems? Are we not life?

It is counterintuitive that a universal pattern of organization would not result in mechanical, "vulgar" determinations, but that's life. Life's universal pattern of organization, aided by random mutation, bifurcation points, and emergences, generates an astounding variety of life. All, however, is rooted in the same pattern of organization, and if we think about it deeply, we see that this must be true. Life varies almost infinitely in its structures and forms, but these different living systems could not co-exist and co-evolve in the life process if they were not organized similarly.

Life is a bootstrap process wherein its many beings are all self-organized material systems network-patterned internally to create a "self" that is able to engage its environment in dynamically interdependent (bootstrap) relations that maintain the "self," the other "selves" with which it interacts, and the life process of "selves."

Thus a cell's components have self-organized into a "self" that is able to engage its environment in energetic and living relations. This is an "economy," and although human socio-economic systems are extraordinarily complex, they, too, must also be self-organized in the pattern by which matter comes to life on Earth. Are we not life?

But humans must do this consciously, and the material organization of our perceptions/consciousness/mind is blind to the organization that brings material "things" to life. Capra's triangle makes this organization visible, but only to those who have passed the consciousness barrier and learned to "see" and "feel" life's organization.

It is most important that neither life nor the triangle are biologically determinist, at least not in the mechanical sense. It is better to think of life's relations as scientifically "magical" than "determinist," for living systems with the same pattern of organization engage each other to emerge into new systems with new properties and behaviors none of their parts possessed. This is scientific, living "magic."

You wrote, "people ... are usually part of a social organization that's 'intentional' and that has reshaped our surrounding physical environments." This is so true, and it is also true and imperative that we recognize the pattern by which matter comes to life and employ that pattern when we design and organize our social systems. Are we not life?

Capra's triangle doesn't mechanically tell people what to do. The triangle enables people to come together in community to design community. The triangle enables people to organize their minds in the pattern of life, engage their particular environment and project in this pattern, and design material, social systems whose being and relations "come to life."

Underneath all our conceit and consciousness, ckaihatsu, people are just self-organized material systems who must learn to follow the "rules of life" that the rest of life automatically obeys. This sounds limiting, but it frees us from blindly violating these laws within the capitalist system. It frees us to consciously realize our nature as life with awareness of itself, and life has an anarchist/communist organization.

You wrote, "To model our behavior on that which exists in nature is to be too 'passive', and to 'forfeit' our societally active potential as part of humanity's ongoing intentional construction of the world around ourselves."

My point is that we are currently passive within capitalist relations because we do not know how to consciously, actively design our communities in life's pattern. Life has great vigor and complexity, and so organizing our lives as does the rest of life would not be passive, but creatively active in the manner in which humanity must create and act.

Learning Capra's triangle would enable us to consciously, actively design anarchist/communist revolutionary processes and communities.

Now to Strannik's post. My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, This will be a partial reply to your thought-provoking post. I will compete it tomorrow after I think over your post's ending engagement with the triangle's elements/components/categories and, especially, the Process element.

I disagree with any suggested split between the young and the old Marx. People and their individual mental systems build on what has gone before, and Marx was always a philosopher and dialectician, although he didn't make this explicit in later life. For that matter, I don't access existing dialectical categories and movements when I address life and society. I have internalized dialectics and the new sciences, both of which understand nature as an organic, systemic process, and do not usually explicitly think in terms of the clumsy, incomplete dialectical "laws." These dialectical categories and Hegelian philosophy informed all of Marx's research and findings, though, as Ollman demonstrates.

Anti-Duhring was a mature work and joint effort by Marx and Engels that was written 30 years after the Manifesto. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was taken from Anti-Duhring.

I am differing from Ollman, though, in that he laboriously puts readers through a "by the numbers" dialectical process attributed to Marx, while I believe Marx's Hegelian adventure left him with that organic, living perception of the relations of nature and society I suggest in the first paragraph. Capra's triangle, though, is much better at presenting the relations of nature and society than the three or four or five dialectical laws: it models the organization that births the systems that move and develop.

The triangle models life's organizational matrix, while dialectics works with the "secondary" aspects of motion and development that arise when matter self-organizes into a living system.

I'm interested in your observation, "Thanks to Wittgenstein, Rosa L. and the anti-dialectics crowd understood correctly the difference between Thought and Nature, but did not notice that this relationship will cause precisely the kind of evolution in social Thought they were criticizing as 'non-existent mysticism' in the Nature." From this I am understanding that whether it is The Idea coming to Earth and evolving to a higher order through material relations, or whether material relations evolve into thought, you will still be working with pesky, "mystical" relations.

Capra's triangle and I work with both analysis/synthesis and matter/organization, but I have skipped Wittgenstein, who may or may not have had some important insights. Rosa L could have provided valuable information here, but chose to beat others up with Wittgenstein rather than introduce him and the rest of her reductionist sources and philosophers. Rosa L. only "dialogued" if you agreed with her to "de-dialogue" life into separate compartments sans dynamic, "mystical" relations.

Perhaps you could strike a blow for comradely discourse and tell me how Wittgenstein understood the "difference between Thought and Nature." I'm genuinely interested, although that may be one hell of a homework assignment.

Reductionism is important, for life consists of things. But those things come to life via organizational relations that the anti-dialecticians ignore, even actively hate. Capitalism is a reductive, quantitative, life-splitting system from hell, and anarchist/Marxist revolutionaries who must learn to organize revolutionary processes cannot be reductionists.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2388191&postcount=154





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect...od_and_dualism


Dialectical method and dualism

Another way to understand dialectics is to view it as a method of thinking to overcome formal dualism and monistic reductionism.[59] For example, formal dualism regards the opposites as mutually exclusive entities, whilst monism finds each to be an epiphenomenon of the other. Dialectical thinking rejects both views. The dialectical method requires focus on both at the same time. It looks for a transcendence of the opposites entailing a leap of the imagination to a higher level, which (1) provides justification for rejecting both alternatives as false and/or (2) helps elucidate a real but previously veiled integral relationship between apparent opposites that have been kept apart and regarded as distinct. For example, the superposition principle of quantum physics can be explained using the dialectical method of thinking—likewise the example below from dialectical biology. Such examples showing the relationship of the dialectic method of thinking to the scientific method to a large part negates the criticism of Popper (see text below) that the two are mutually exclusive. The dialectic method also examines false alternatives presented by formal dualism (materialism vs idealism; rationalism vs empiricism; mind vs body, etc.) and looks for ways to transcend the opposites and form synthesis. In the dialectical method, both have something in common, and understanding of the parts requires understanding their relationship with the whole system. The dialectical method thus views the whole of reality as an evolving process.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, ckaihatsu, The excellent link supplied by ckaihatsu on dialectics portrays the sort of dead "biological and social splits" into which the various forms of reductionism seem to invariably lead. Ultimately, reductionism takes the life out of life. Dialectics, however, is a synthesis of life's stuff and its dynamic relations, as is life.

Dialectics works with the motion and development--the dynamics--of "nature, human society, and thought." Capra's triangle then models the underlying organization of Earth's living systems, and thereby serves to bring the dialectic to full-bodied life and to popular, revolutionary praxis, if we whose perception/consciousness is almost blind to organization can pass the perceptual barrier and get the hang of working with a full dialectical, dynamic, organizational, revolutionary understanding of life and society.

Capra advises us in Web of Life to apply the living relations and processes the new sciences reveal to human social relations. I did this with increasing excitement and awe as I read, and this is the root of my deep insight that humans are "children of the universe" and are "no more" than self-organized material systems that have undergone numerous emergences into a "conscious" organizational relation with life. Humans must consciously labor to produce the living relations the rest of life automatically enjoys.

But how to do this? It is accurate to say that life is "communist," and this is a radical revelation. But how does life "go communist" and how do we "make communism"? Marx and Engels didn't know how. The formula is: proletariat overthrows the bourgeoisie to usher in a classless, realized human society, but how do we organize such a process?

So I had mindblowing, volcanic mental eruptions when I came across the triangle in Chapter 7 of Web. I immediately applied it to several social and natural systems and it worked and has always worked for the past 13 years.

The triangle potentially enables us to take a revolutionary leap into a truly human future. Nothing like the triangle has existed before, although Engels' three (or four) laws of the dialectic suggest such a mental device. The dialectic Marx and Engels worked with was a dialectic of the motion and development of life's organization, though. What is that organization? Marx and Engels didn't know, and Marxism and communism stlll need to get organized.

Strannik correctly concludes that "creating and maintaining the correct process is the most important part and where Organizations usually fail." Yes, indeed, the Process element of the triangle--its life activity, its being/doing, meaning and purpose--integrates its internal organization and the "self" that results with the rest of life. This is the trickiest, most "mystical" aspect of triangle operation.

It seems that thinking about the triangle and trying to apply it with our reductive minds becomes confusing to all. However, we accomplish this "without rules" all the time. Humans incessantly but informally design various viable forms of community. A formal brainstorming session mimics operating the triangle, so I will unpack a hypothetical brainstorming and relate it to the triangle in my next post.

I'll end this post with "the formula": all life consists of self-organized material systems existing in dynamic interdependence with their environment, and these living systems are self-organized Matter network-Patterned with their Process (life activity). On Earth, matter has self-organized into forms with which these emergent material systems engage the life process and keep themselves and life going.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik noted that the Process element of Capra's triangle is the trickiest part. So true: Process integrates a living system into the environment with dynamic, enduring (living) relations. Process reflects John Muir's observation, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." Process is the triangle category that "hitches a living system to the universe."

Reductionism doesn't hitch its things to the universe: it divorces them from life. Reductionism adds its "things" up into a lump or deconstructs a living being into separate elements. There is no life in reductionism.

And human perception/consciousness is conservative and reductive, and so engaging life's organization and learning to employ it in "magical," "mystical," dialectical, emergent processes is, indeed, mindfucking. But we must learn to fuck capitalism and not screw around in our minds, and Capra's triangle makes this doable.

I realized a few years ago that a formal brainstorming session mimics triangle (living) relations. This is why brainstorms are so successful. In a brainstorm, people (Matter) self-organize in the network Pattern to design a project that will be introduced into the social/natural environment (Process:life activity).

A brainstorming session begins with people (Matter) with diverse views assembling in the network Pattern to engage a problem or create a project (Process). They are a physical system that represents the triangle in action. They are self-organizing a bottom-up, grassroots, physical living system that will now self-organize a mental living system (their project in abstract). The triangle lives!

The network-Patterned participants (Matter) have self-organized to engage a problem (Process). Let's say they want to compel OWS to confront capitalism. The participants face the front to focus on the project and not each other (creativity, not scoring social points is needed) and no criticisms are allowed of others' ideas initially (again: creativity is being emphasized). This formation is a living human social system organized according to the triangle and life.

Many ideas are generated, and the brainstormers select the best and refine them into a multi-faceted project that will manifest self-organizing Matter (people and their materials) network-Patterned with its Process (life activity; being/doing; meaning, purpose) as the group designs its project of going beneath the superficiality of Occupy Wall Street to radically engage the capitalist system that produces Wall Street.

This mental system of confronting capitalism has been organized according to Capra's triangle and life, and it will now be birthed into the real world as a social living system/project organized in life's pattern. Capra's triangle enables brainstormers to "play God" and design projects that "come to life" in the manner by which stuff comes to life on Earth.

This brainstorming session and the triangle are mental tools by which humans may consciously organize themselves in the manner the rest of life automatically organizes. Thus a termite's components have self-organized themselves internally to form the termite "self" with which the components and the termite earn their living. The termite doesn't need to brainstorm with a triangle to organize itself, though, unlike we humans with a partial consciousness. Mother Nature self- organizes her termites, while humans must learn to self-organize themselves.

This brainstorming session has been an intensely bottom-up, grassroots, democratic process as is life and anarchism/communism.

Red (Marxism, anarchism/communism, the materialist dialectic) and Green (life and its organization, the new sciences, ecological relations, Capra's triangle) are a natural unity. Let's get natural!

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I've been thinking over your offer to create graphical depictions and illustrations of the triangle and its operation, and find we have again arrived at the door to that damned paradigm shift in consciousness. I'm not sure we can portray life's universal pattern of organization in other than the highly imprecise, abstracted form Capra has created.

Here's why. I constantly hear I must supply more detail, and "detail" is how human perception/consciousness works. We see details--things. However, Capra's triangle is about the organization of the details. The triangle supplies life's pattern of organization, and operators of the triangle and what I hope becomes a red-green materialist dialectic are to organize their minds, view their situation, and create radical forms of community in this pattern. This triangle/dialectic supplies the organization to the details revolutionaries are to create.

So how might we portray: All life consists of living systems that are self-organized, integrated wholes existing in dynamic interdependence with each other and physical environmental forces, and whose universal pattern of organization is that of self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity?

It seems that Capra's Triangle supplies the abstracted, "mystical" organizational relations we must employ to supply viable details to our lives. We humans labor to create the details of our lives, and now we must learn to organize these details in communal, natural, living, anarchist/communist forms.

So I'm stumped as how to graphically illustrate the triangle. You have the skills here. However, I think your comradely offer has pointed to that development I believe is required of human perception/consciousness: we must learn to "see" the organization underlying the details/things of life and organize our lives accordingly.

The incomplete nature of human consciousness is the last major insight the triangle brought to me. I just began seeing and emphasizing this theme several years ago, but it has proved its validity to me over and over, and this partial consciousness is the natural outcome of the life's universal pattern of organization.

So we who design our lives must overcome this unnatural naturally-arrived-at human consciousness, and Capra's triangle and the materialist dialectic are our mental tools.

I'm sure interested in any illustrations of this you might come up with, of course. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

So how might we portray: All life consists of living systems that are self-organized, integrated wholes existing in dynamic interdependence with each other and physical environmental forces, and whose universal pattern of organization is that of self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity?


MN, my quick answer is to, ironically, use a reductionist approach to break this down into its constituent components, since -- as you're aware -- that's what we're limited to for matters of (necessarily abstract) general descriptions.

However, the benefit with graphic depictions is that they *can* provide a cohesive *visual* space of shared commonality and potential interconnectedness -- hence my efforts.

I'll return to this in awhile -- gotta go.

[ckaihatsu]

So how might we portray: All life consists of living systems that are self-organized, integrated wholes existing in dynamic interdependence with each other and physical environmental forces, and whose universal pattern of organization is that of self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity?


MN, I think the focus should be oriented to the more-human-social-political side of things, to explain and illustrate the dynamic you outline and advocate above.

I 'thanked' your previous post because you (finally) spoke to this aspect in a concrete way:





I realized a few years ago that a formal brainstorming session mimics triangle (living) relations. This is why brainstorms are so successful. In a brainstorm, people (Matter) self-organize in the network Pattern to design a project that will be introduced into the social/natural environment (Process:life activity).

A brainstorming session begins with people (Matter) with diverse views assembling in the network Pattern to engage a problem or create a project (Process). They are a physical system that represents the triangle in action. They are self-organizing a bottom-up, grassroots, physical living system that will now self-organize a mental living system (their project in abstract). The triangle lives!

The network-Patterned participants (Matter) have self-organized to engage a problem (Process).




Let's say they want to compel OWS to confront capitalism. The participants face the front to focus on the project and not each other (creativity, not scoring social points is needed) and no criticisms are allowed of others' ideas initially (again: creativity is being emphasized). This formation is a living human social system organized according to the triangle and life.

Many ideas are generated, and the brainstormers select the best and refine them into a multi-faceted project that will manifest self-organizing Matter (people and their materials) network-Patterned with its Process (life activity; being/doing; meaning, purpose) as the group designs its project of going beneath the superficiality of Occupy Wall Street to radically engage the capitalist system that produces Wall Street.

This mental system of confronting capitalism has been organized according to Capra's triangle and life, and it will now be birthed into the real world as a social living system/project organized in life's pattern. Capra's triangle enables brainstormers to "play God" and design projects that "come to life" in the manner by which stuff comes to life on Earth.




This brainstorming session and the triangle are mental tools by which humans may consciously organize themselves in the manner the rest of life automatically organizes.




This brainstorming session has been an intensely bottom-up, grassroots, democratic process as is life and anarchism/communism.


I'll note that I have also, in my own efforts, pointed to the organizational mode of brainstorming -- the diagram is attached below.

If you're indicating that you'd like the triangle, its components, and the forward-facing organizational mode of brainstorming included in some way, please confirm this. I don't want to run too far out from what you may (or may not) have in mind for this.


[16] Affinity Group Workflow Tracker

http://postimage.org/image/1cqt82ps4/

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for the brainstorming diagram. But how to show the inseparable unity of the organization of living systems whose material components self-organize internally in the network pattern to create the system whose dynamic interdependence with its environment generates the energy and environmental relations necessary to its being? Your diagram illustrates stages in a brainstorming session, but how might we show the organization that eventuates in these stages?

A brainstorming session generates this universal pattern of organization and is effective for this reason. Its members self-organize internally into a body/brain that designs a project that will be dynamically interdependent internally with itself and outwardly with the external environment.

The surfperch I caught yesterday are material systems that have self-organized into a network pattern internally that is dynamically interdependent (inseparably linked in network pattern) with its environment of other living beings and physical forces. This is how the perch "make their living" and keep going, and fish do this automatically and do not need your diagrams.

We do, though, so please go ahead and proceed as you feel is right. This will help us see where we have our perceptual hang-ups. I know what I'm thinking, but need to learn where others' minds are in this Great Perceptual Divide, and will be most interested in anything you come up with. Anarchist/communist revolutionary processes belong to everyone and must be informed and organized by many of us.

This post has now exceeded my usual level of confusion. I'm confused. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for the brainstorming diagram. But how to show the inseparable unity of the organization of living systems whose material components self-organize internally in the network pattern to create the system whose dynamic interdependence with its environment generates the energy and environmental relations necessary to its being? Your diagram illustrates stages in a brainstorming session, but how might we show the organization that eventuates in these stages?

A brainstorming session generates this universal pattern of organization and is effective for this reason. Its members self-organize internally into a body/brain that designs a project that will be dynamically interdependent internally with itself and outwardly with the external environment.

The surfperch I caught yesterday are material systems that have self-organized into a network pattern internally that is dynamically interdependent (inseparably linked in network pattern) with its environment of other living beings and physical forces. This is how the perch "make their living" and keep going, and fish do this automatically and do not need your diagrams.

We do, though, so please go ahead and proceed as you feel is right. This will help us see where we have our perceptual hang-ups. I know what I'm thinking, but need to learn where others' minds are in this Great Perceptual Divide, and will be most interested in anything you come up with. Anarchist/communist revolutionary processes belong to everyone and must be informed and organized by many of us.

This post has now exceeded my usual level of confusion. I'm confused. My red-green best.


Yes.

What comes to mind is a basic layout like that of 'universal context', below, showing a triangular arrangement around a flat horizontal circle, with the 'process' point facing away (indicating future-oriented).

'Matter' may take up more of the central area of the circle, indicating substance-at-hand, while 'network' could be represented by a landscape of stochastically distributed little cubes, possibly varying somewhat in size and rotation from one to the next. It would stretch from left to right, through the center of the circle, thus overlapping with 'matter'.

The random arrangement of little cubes could be seen to coalesce in the circle into a larger identifiable shape, indicating the property of 'emergence'. Perhaps the shape / subject could be in some kind of action-pose, indicating activity or process.

This is just a preliminary sketch, so feel free to comment, alter, and add to it. Take care.


universal context

http://postimage.org/image/fn8hqaxrh/

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for the continuing interest, your sketch, and ideas. We may be getting somewhere in creating a more popularly accessible model for life's organization. I'm way off in the "organization" side of the human consciousness divide, while you work much more than I on the details and things that are organized, so perhaps we can find a synthetic middle ground.

I engaged our project in the quiet, wee hours of the morning with my dog sleeping by my side. It seems the problem we have is how we might clearly represent the "magical," unseen, abstract processes of self-organization and emergence that are so unfamiliar to human perception/consciousness but so critical to life, communism, and revolution. Life, communism, and revolution are self-organized, emergent processes.

Ultimately, should we and others agree on the triangle's presentation of life's (thus society's) organization, I would want to then "attach" the dialectical motions and developments of the materialist dialectic to the triangle's body. This would provide revolutionaries with a full-bodied, "living" materialist dialectic, and enable the average person to radically self-organize with others and "go to revolution." We would have a living model of the organization of life, and life goes to revolution all the time.

You proposed a circle enclosed by Capra's triangle. You wrote, "Matter may take up more of the central area of the circle, indicating substance-at-hand." This sounds right, for living systems have internal material components.

And they are in the network pattern. Of this you wrote, "Network could be represented by a landscape of stochastically distributed little cubes, possible varying in size and rotation from one to the next." This works well, too, and little dashes between the cubes could indicate their linkage and suggest self-organization.

Now we arrive at Process, which I find shows the real, scientific "magic" underlying life's organization. Material components or systems self-organize in the network Pattern and form larger, emergent systems with new properties and behaviors, and these new systems are dynamically interdependent with their environment.

I can't think how this emergence might be shown, although it and self-organization could be explained with a brief statement below the diagram. The self-organization statement could point to your circle's related, diverse cubes. The emergence statement could point to the circle, which as a living being has emerged from the self-organization of your inner circle, and its emergent, dynamic interdependence with the environment that results can also be stated.

As life is a bootstrap of these living systems, perhaps a host of circles outside the circle/triangle can indicate this crucial dynamic interdependence with the rest of life. I wouldn't say that Process is "future-oriented," by the way. It is immediate. There is no separation of the self-organization of matter into a living system and that system's dynamic interdependence with its surround. Life is an inseparable, dynamically interdependent bootstrap of living systems keeping themselves, each other, and the life process going.

Interestingly, I find there is much resemblance between life's bootstrap of living systems keeping the life process going and capitalism's malignant system of profits taken from life dynamically maintaining itself once it got started. The process of life isn't going to run out of the sun's energy, though, while capitalism is at the end of its ability to manufacture the steadily increasing profit that is its source of energy.

I hope this has been of some value. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for the continuing interest, your sketch, and ideas. We may be getting somewhere in creating a more popularly accessible model for life's organization. I'm way off in the "organization" side of the human consciousness divide, while you work much more than I on the details and things that are organized, so perhaps we can find a synthetic middle ground.

I engaged our project in the quiet, wee hours of the morning with my dog sleeping by my side. It seems the problem we have is how we might clearly represent the "magical," unseen, abstract processes of self-organization and emergence that are so unfamiliar to human perception/consciousness but so critical to life, communism, and revolution. Life, communism, and revolution are self-organized, emergent processes.

Ultimately, should we and others agree on the triangle's presentation of life's (thus society's) organization, I would want to then "attach" the dialectical motions and developments of the materialist dialectic to the triangle's body.


Okay, please conceptualize this into physical form, for the scene's context, as much as possible.





This would provide revolutionaries with a full-bodied, "living" materialist dialectic, and enable the average person to radically self-organize with others and "go to revolution." We would have a living model of the organization of life, and life goes to revolution all the time.




You proposed a circle enclosed by Capra's triangle. You wrote, "Matter may take up more of the central area of the circle, indicating substance-at-hand." This sounds right, for living systems have internal material components.

And they are in the network pattern. Of this you wrote, "Network could be represented by a landscape of stochastically distributed little cubes, possible varying in size and rotation from one to the next." This works well, too, and little dashes between the cubes could indicate their linkage and suggest self-organization.


Okay.





Now we arrive at Process, which I find shows the real, scientific "magic" underlying life's organization. Material components or systems self-organize in the network Pattern and form larger, emergent systems with new properties and behaviors, and these new systems are dynamically interdependent with their environment.

I can't think how this emergence might be shown, although it and self-organization could be explained with a brief statement below the diagram. The self-organization statement could point to your circle's related, diverse cubes. The emergence statement could point to the circle, which as a living being has emerged from the self-organization of your inner circle, and its emergent, dynamic interdependence with the environment that results can also be stated.


Okay.





As life is a bootstrap of these living systems, perhaps a host of circles outside the circle/triangle can indicate this crucial dynamic interdependence with the rest of life.


Okay, how about main-circle-like smaller circles that surround the main circle area, to suggest this?

Many of them may contain one or more of the little cubes as well (?)





I wouldn't say that Process is "future-oriented," by the way. It is immediate. There is no separation of the self-organization of matter into a living system and that system's dynamic interdependence with its surround. Life is an inseparable, dynamically interdependent bootstrap of living systems keeping themselves, each other, and the life process going.


Okay. I'll suggest, but won't argue, that 'process' is immediate-(present)-to-future since -- at the human-social-conscious level -- one wouldn't *need* a process if one wasn't consciously / motivationally concerned with the future and planning for it.





Interestingly, I find there is much resemblance between life's bootstrap of living systems keeping the life process going and capitalism's malignant system of profits taken from life dynamically maintaining itself once it got started. The process of life isn't going to run out of the sun's energy, though, while capitalism is at the end of its ability to manufacture the steadily increasing profit that is its source of energy.

I hope this has been of some value. My red-green best.


Yes.

I'll bring all of this together and have something before too long....

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, MN, here's a first round -- statements can go anywhere, space permitting.

Let me know how it looks so far, and any changes or additions that should be made. Later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, We seem to be getting somewhere. This is getting real interesting.

Lynx, You've been following this thread, and any comments you might have as to what you can and can't "see" and "hear" in the manner we are presenting it would be of value. Perception is the difficulty here. How might life's organization be modeled so as to be popularly perceived and employed?

ckaihatsu, Please excuse the confusion in this post. I've been mulling over stuff and will have further formulated some ideas tomorrow.

As to that proposed fully emodied, "living" dialectic that combines the triangle (organization) and the materialist dialectic (motion and development of what has been organized), I suggest we solely concentrate on the triangle for the time being. It's enough of a mindblowing difficulty for the moment. Later we can address and sort through the various dialectical categories, perhaps tweak their languaged expressions and relate them to more commonly perceived living dynamics, add dialectical "laws" where some important aspect of life's dynamism has been missed, etc.

We seem to be in agreement over the diagram's basics so far. We have linked stochastic cubes (components) internal to the circle (living system) that emerges from the relations of the internal cubes, and the circle is enclosed within a triangle representing life's universal pattern of organization. I suggest that this triangle's angles be marked: "Pattern (network)"; "Matter (stuff)"; and "Process (life activity)".

I'm now looking for a simple statement of self organization and emergence we might place below the circle-triangle. Something along the lines of: "Emergence: whole is greater than the sum of its parts. New systems are formed and new properties and behaviors emerge that are absent in their formative parts. Example: cells form organs that form bodies."
And, "Self-Organization: living systems are structurally open but organizationally closed. In life, lower level components self-organize to emerge into a system that is dynamically interdependent with its environment, but that system's self-organization and not the environment determines whether and how it responds to environmental stimuli. Example: a dog's canid nature, breed, and individual history will determine how it will respond if you kick it."

Perhaps the sides of the triangle could have a double arrow connecting circle/triangle with "outside life." This would show life's dynamic interdependence-- its inseparable, bootstrap organization.

And yes, the Process element of the triangle establishes relations that extend to the future. There is development, reproduction, evolution. So let's think some more on this.

When all is done, I would hope that triangle operators would have a simple awareness that life is created by and composed of living systems that are self-organized matter network-patterned into the form and relations with which it integrates into its environment. These triangle operators could then sit down and brainstorm together to design (self-organize) communal (material) systems that integrate with each other and nature in life's universal pattern of organization.

All for today! My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, We seem to be getting somewhere. This is getting real interesting.

Lynx, You've been following this thread, and any comments you might have as to what you can and can't "see" and "hear" in the manner we are presenting it would be of value. Perception is the difficulty here. How might life's organization be modeled so as to be popularly perceived and employed?

ckaihatsu, Please excuse the confusion in this post. I've been mulling over stuff and will have further formulated some ideas tomorrow.


Okay.





As to that proposed fully emodied, "living" dialectic that combines the triangle (organization) and the materialist dialectic (motion and development of what has been organized), I suggest we solely concentrate on the triangle for the time being. It's enough of a mindblowing difficulty for the moment. Later we can address and sort through the various dialectical categories, perhaps tweak their languaged expressions and relate them to more commonly perceived living dynamics, add dialectical "laws" where some important aspect of life's dynamism has been missed, etc.


Okay.





We seem to be in agreement over the diagram's basics so far. We have linked stochastic cubes (components) internal to the circle (living system) that emerges from the relations of the internal cubes, and the circle is enclosed within a triangle representing life's universal pattern of organization. I suggest that this triangle's angles be marked: "Pattern (network)"; "Matter (stuff)"; and "Process (life activity)".


Okay, good to hear. I'll be updating the labels.

Btw, I skipped including the little dashes you mentioned to join each little cube to its adjacent others -- for the time being, at least, it would be too logistically (labor) intensive. I'll see what I can do, though....





I'm now looking for a simple statement of self organization and emergence we might place below the circle-triangle. Something along the lines of: "Emergence: whole is greater than the sum of its parts. New systems are formed and new properties and behaviors emerge that are absent in their formative parts. Example: cells form organs that form bodies."


Okay.

Do you have anything in mind for *depicting* this, since there's an upward dimension, above the circle, that could be utilized for this -- ?





And, "Self-Organization: living systems are structurally open but organizationally closed. In life, lower level components self-organize to emerge into a system that is dynamically interdependent with its environment, but that system's self-organization and not the environment determines whether and how it responds to environmental stimuli. Example: a dog's canid nature, breed, and individual history will determine how it will respond if you kick it."


Okay -- incidentally I'd term this 'cognitivism', whether for an animal or a person. (Yes, genetics would play a stronger role for *bred* animals, but then so would training and treatment.)





Perhaps the sides of the triangle could have a double arrow connecting circle/triangle with "outside life." This would show life's dynamic interdependence-- its inseparable, bootstrap organization.


Okay -- those would be *perpendicular* to each of the three sides of the triangle, correct -- ?





And yes, the Process element of the triangle establishes relations that extend to the future. There is development, reproduction, evolution. So let's think some more on this.


Okay -- I'll suggest picking-up / using the 'flow of time' broad-arrow element from the 'universal context' diagram.





When all is done, I would hope that triangle operators would have a simple awareness that life is created by and composed of living systems that are self-organized matter network-patterned into the form and relations with which it integrates into its environment. These triangle operators could then sit down and brainstorm together to design (self-organize) communal (material) systems that integrate with each other and nature in life's universal pattern of organization.

All for today! My red-green best.


Sounds good, and I appreciate the motivation for all of this -- if people can agree on a general, generic framework like this one then they have a common "language" of material understanding for proceeding.

Second round is forthcoming....

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, We've definitely already improved the triangle with the inner circle, which shows a living system, and with that living system's inner core of linked cubes, which indicates material self-organization into a living system and/or a higher level of organization with emergent qualities.

I was thinking in the wee hours again and wrote down a full page of notes in the dark. Here are those thoughts.

We need to keep the triangle as simple as possible. The simplicity of life's underlying pattern of organization is to be engaged by activists who will then provide the many details of a project according to their environment and goals.

So I'm thinking we might want to produce two models of the triangle. The first would portray it in its most simple form: a triangle with Pattern, Matter, and Process at its angles. Then we would offer the second, "triangle of explanation" model on which we are currently working. This second model would offer the simple organizational details of life's universal pattern of organization.

Here's what I'm seeing at present in this second triangle. It will consist of a circle enclosed within a triangle. The circle will have a core of perhaps a dozen linked cubes with a "double arrow" leading from them to the edge of the circle/triangle. This double arrow pointing to both parts and whole shows parts create whole and whole creates parts.

But living systems, although self-organized, are dynamically interdependent with their environment. Life is a bootstrap of these systems. Thus I suggest we also employ linked cubes to represent the environment of living systems that is external to the triangle, and so I see making that double arrow a "quadruple arrow": a single shaft with arrowheads that externally point to environment and triangle/circle and internally point from triangle/circle to the self-organizing core of linked cubes. So we would have a straight line with four arrowheads, two "externals," two "insiders."

I have no way of portraying this and any other sketches I might come up with on a computer, and am wondering if we might want to lose our anonymity to each other. I believe Revleft allows this per pm. I'm ready to provide my address/identity, and if you are willing to do the same, I would send my sketches to your address. I'm working up my current vision of our triangle today, including statements of self-organization and emergence.

Everything is unsettled as to our ultimate model, though. It and we are a work in progress. You are probably aware of Marx's intention, expressed in a letter to Engels, to write out the dialectic in "two or three printer's sheets" in a manner comprehensible to the average worker. I believe we can eventually portray Marx's project in one printer's sheet and earn Marx's and Engels' eternal gratitude. We'll resurrrect those suckers!

A letter to Capra in which we present him with his "baby" in adult form is also indicated.

First, though, we'll want to present our grown-up triangle to the Sciences and Environment Forum for a full group presentation and workout, won't we?

As for portraying the future, Engels suggested a dialectical category of "spiral form of development" (plan outline for Dialectics of Nature). Spirals nicely point to a "future" and suggest dialectical relations of interdependence, contradiction, transformation, revolution, emergence, etc. There's lots of interaction and "motion and development" in a spiral.

I have previously posted a "new sciences" notation for a complete theory of evolution: "s-o/S-O," in which a living system's internal self-organization is inseparably linked to its external ("natural selection") environment of self-organizing systems, with all the emergences that result represented by the slash. I find this neatly encompasses the three major evolutionary forces--self-organization, selection, and emergence--and indicates life is a bootstrap of this organization. Does this make any sense to you?

Finally, and definitely not to nag, isn't it time to read The Web of Life?

Now I'll go to work on drawing "my" expression of our triangle. My 3:00 AM brainstorming leads to much mischief and homework. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, here it is -- please note that you / we may want a title, a byline, and some attribution and links included.

Later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I don't believe you have accessed my earlier post yet, and I will comment on what you have come up with so far.

I think we need a big contrast of some sort (color?) between triangle, circle, and circle/living system's components. I have the components pictured as a small linked group in center of circle with a double arrow pointing to them and circle (parts form wholes that form the parts) and no internal text. I have all the text outside the circle/triangle, with the triangle's angles labeled outside, too.

Then the double arrow between components and circle becomes a quadruple arrow as it continues into environment and points to environment and back from it to triangle. This represents the dynamic interdependence of life's systems and their bootstrap organizational process.

Simplicity is essential. We want to enable others to see life's simplicity and not the mindboggling complexity that results. Triangle operators are to organize their minds according to life's few, simple rules and design complex programs and communities from that simplicity, as does life. Triangulators are going to "play God" and design surface complexity from deep simplicity, to echo Murray Gell-Mann's profoundly radical understanding of life's organizational process.

But our work so far is just preliminary awaiting a lot of continuing discussion, isn't it? We're trying to create the simplest, most popularly accessible model of life's organization we can manage, and it seems we need to discuss this a lot between ourselves and get other minds engaged, too.

I have only one linked cluster of cubes outside the triangle to illustrate the living environment's dynamic, bootstrapped interdependency. I picture these environmental cubes as miniature circles enclosed within a triangle to indicate they are living systems, too. This is a minor difference in our presentations, but it does seem less cluttered and easier to draw if the enviroment is represented by a cluster, and perhaps the little circle-triangles are a good idea as well.

Here is the preliminary draft of the text I have placed beneath the diagram. Immediately below our model goes: "UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF A LIVING SYSTEM" Then:

"Living systems are self-organized, emergent, integrated, material wholes*
that exist in dynamic interdependence with their environment of other living systems and physical forces.
"As the triangle shows, the universal pattern of organization of a living system is that of self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity.
"Life is a self-organizing, emergent, systemic process. The phenomena of self-organization and emergence are essential to life.
"Self-organization: living systems are structurally open but organizationally closed to their environment. They are environmentally interdependent and interconnected, but their internal organization determines which environmental stimuli they recognize and how they behave in response. Example: A flycatcher chases flying insects and ignores sitting bugs.
"Emergence: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this process, lower level components and systems self-organize to emerge into a new system with new properties and behaviors absent in the parts. Example: cells self-organize to emerge into flycatchers.
*There can be non-physical living systems, too, such as a mind that emerges from the self-organizing material neurons of the brain."

Whew! These are all just preliminary suggestions and ideas. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Whew! These are all just preliminary suggestions and ideas. My red-green best.


Okay, MN, if these are more at the 'brainstorming' level, then I'll take them under consideration and see how they can add to whatever's already in motion.

You may also want to address some of the pointed issues / concerns I've raised.

I'll return to this in awhile -- later.





ckaihatsu, I don't believe you have accessed my earlier post yet, and I will comment on what you have come up with so far.

I think we need a big contrast of some sort (color?) between triangle, circle, and circle/living system's components. I have the components pictured as a small linked group in center of circle with a double arrow pointing to them and circle (parts form wholes that form the parts) and no internal text. I have all the text outside the circle/triangle, with the triangle's angles labeled outside, too.

Then the double arrow between components and circle becomes a quadruple arrow as it continues into environment and points to environment and back from it to triangle. This represents the dynamic interdependence of life's systems and their bootstrap organizational process.

Simplicity is essential. We want to enable others to see life's simplicity and not the mindboggling complexity that results. Triangle operators are to organize their minds according to life's few, simple rules and design complex programs and communities from that simplicity, as does life. Triangulators are going to "play God" and design surface complexity from deep simplicity, to echo Murray Gell-Mann's profoundly radical understanding of life's organizational process.

But our work so far is just preliminary awaiting a lot of continuing discussion, isn't it? We're trying to create the simplest, most popularly accessible model of life's organization we can manage, and it seems we need to discuss this a lot between ourselves and get other minds engaged, too.

I have only one linked cluster of cubes outside the triangle to illustrate the living environment's dynamic, bootstrapped interdependency. I picture these environmental cubes as miniature circles enclosed within a triangle to indicate they are living systems, too. This is a minor difference in our presentations, but it does seem less cluttered and easier to draw if the enviroment is represented by a cluster, and perhaps the little circle-triangles are a good idea as well.

Here is the preliminary draft of the text I have placed beneath the diagram. Immediately below our model goes: "UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF A LIVING SYSTEM" Then:

"Living systems are self-organized, emergent, integrated, material wholes*
that exist in dynamic interdependence with their environment of other living systems and physical forces.
"As the triangle shows, the universal pattern of organization of a living system is that of self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity.
"Life is a self-organizing, emergent, systemic process. The phenomena of self-organization and emergence are essential to life.
"Self-organization: living systems are structurally open but organizationally closed to their environment. They are environmentally interdependent and interconnected, but their internal organization determines which environmental stimuli they recognize and how they behave in response. Example: A flycatcher chases flying insects and ignores sitting bugs.
"Emergence: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this process, lower level components and systems self-organize to emerge into a new system with new properties and behaviors absent in the parts. Example: cells self-organize to emerge into flycatchers.
*There can be non-physical living systems, too, such as a mind that emerges from the self-organizing material neurons of the brain."

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I don't believe you have accessed my earlier post yet, and I will comment on what you have come up with so far.

I think we need a big contrast of some sort (color?) between triangle, circle, and circle/living system's components.


Okay, I agree with this layout-related point, and I'll see what I can do -- I was thinking over some kind of a circular gradient on the glass (triangle) portion, to show a fading locus. Also, what do you think about "cleaning off" the triangle so that its *points* become free of the little cubes, while its *center* could remain with the cubes, possibly differently, as you have in your description -- ?





I have the components pictured as a small linked group in center of circle with a double arrow pointing to them and circle (parts form wholes that form the parts) and no internal text. I have all the text outside the circle/triangle, with the triangle's angles labeled outside, too.

Then the double arrow between components and circle becomes a quadruple arrow as it continues into environment and points to environment and back from it to triangle. This represents the dynamic interdependence of life's systems and their bootstrap organizational process.


Okay, I did a little sketch of this -- no complications required on your part -- and I see what you're getting at. This 'second triangle' version would depict the dynamic of *scale*, or self-similarity, very well.

My concern, offhand, would be about having to reduce the relative size of the figure to make room for the text *outside* of it. I also don't know what you think of the existing pattern of little cubes, and how / if they would figure into this 'second' version.





Simplicity is essential. We want to enable others to see life's simplicity and not the mindboggling complexity that results. Triangle operators are to organize their minds according to life's few, simple rules and design complex programs and communities from that simplicity, as does life. Triangulators are going to "play God" and design surface complexity from deep simplicity, to echo Murray Gell-Mann's profoundly radical understanding of life's organizational process.


While you have a flair for the 'natural' -- hence your moniker -- I would have a standing concern with making sure that the illustration serves to encourage conscious activity-mindedness -- which you express, noted -- and does not become an image that only depicts a purely *natural* dynamic.





But our work so far is just preliminary awaiting a lot of continuing discussion, isn't it? We're trying to create the simplest, most popularly accessible model of life's organization we can manage, and it seems we need to discuss this a lot between ourselves and get other minds engaged, too.


Certainly.





I have only one linked cluster of cubes outside the triangle to illustrate the living environment's dynamic, bootstrapped interdependency. I picture these environmental cubes as miniature circles enclosed within a triangle to indicate they are living systems, too. This is a minor difference in our presentations, but it does seem less cluttered and easier to draw if the enviroment is represented by a cluster, and perhaps the little circle-triangles are a good idea as well.


I have this sketched as a smaller version of the triangle / circumscribed circle / handful of linked cubes, mirroring the main, larger version, with the two double-headed arrows in series, on either side of one of the main triangle's sides.

I would think you would want more than just one copy of the smaller version outside of the main, since the nature of the subject is inherently about complexity and parallelism.





Here is the preliminary draft of the text I have placed beneath the diagram. Immediately below our model goes: "UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF A LIVING SYSTEM"


My concern about the *purpose* of the diagram is kicking-in here -- with this title and supporting text you're making it almost exclusively about *nature*, and that's hardly socially / politically oriented or enabling.





Then:

"Living systems are self-organized, emergent, integrated, material wholes*
that exist in dynamic interdependence with their environment of other living systems and physical forces.
"As the triangle shows, the universal pattern of organization of a living system is that of self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity.
"Life is a self-organizing, emergent, systemic process. The phenomena of self-organization and emergence are essential to life.
"Self-organization: living systems are structurally open but organizationally closed to their environment. They are environmentally interdependent and interconnected, but their internal organization determines which environmental stimuli they recognize and how they behave in response. Example: A flycatcher chases flying insects and ignores sitting bugs.
"Emergence: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this process, lower level components and systems self-organize to emerge into a new system with new properties and behaviors absent in the parts. Example: cells self-organize to emerge into flycatchers.
*There can be non-physical living systems, too, such as a mind that emerges from the self-organizing material neurons of the brain."

Whew! These are all just preliminary suggestions and ideas. My red-green best.




ckaihatsu, We've definitely already improved the triangle with the inner circle, which shows a living system, and with that living system's inner core of linked cubes, which indicates material self-organization into a living system and/or a higher level of organization with emergent qualities.

I was thinking in the wee hours again and wrote down a full page of notes in the dark. Here are those thoughts.

We need to keep the triangle as simple as possible. The simplicity of life's underlying pattern of organization is to be engaged by activists who will then provide the many details of a project according to their environment and goals.


I'm glad to *hear* this motivation / purpose said, but I don't *see* it in how you're describing the ('second') diagram....





So I'm thinking we might want to produce two models of the triangle. The first would portray it in its most simple form: a triangle with Pattern, Matter, and Process at its angles. Then we would offer the second, "triangle of explanation" model on which we are currently working. This second model would offer the simple organizational details of life's universal pattern of organization.


I don't agree with the idea of having *two* separate images, nor do I understand your rationale for even suggesting as much.





Here's what I'm seeing at present in this second triangle. It will consist of a circle enclosed within a triangle. The circle will have a core of perhaps a dozen linked cubes with a "double arrow" leading from them to the edge of the circle/triangle. This double arrow pointing to both parts and whole shows parts create whole and whole creates parts.

But living systems, although self-organized, are dynamically interdependent with their environment. Life is a bootstrap of these systems. Thus I suggest we also employ linked cubes to represent the environment of living systems that is external to the triangle, and so I see making that double arrow a "quadruple arrow": a single shaft with arrowheads that externally point to environment and triangle/circle and internally point from triangle/circle to the self-organizing core of linked cubes. So we would have a straight line with four arrowheads, two "externals," two "insiders."


Okay, I have this in front of me.





I have no way of portraying this and any other sketches I might come up with on a computer, and am wondering if we might want to lose our anonymity to each other. I believe Revleft allows this per pm. I'm ready to provide my address/identity, and if you are willing to do the same, I would send my sketches to your address. I'm working up my current vision of our triangle today, including statements of self-organization and emergence.


No prob -- no need. I think we're able to make our own sketches and relay descriptions back and forth -- it's not unwieldy.





Everything is unsettled as to our ultimate model, though. It and we are a work in progress. You are probably aware of Marx's intention, expressed in a letter to Engels, to write out the dialectic in "two or three printer's sheets" in a manner comprehensible to the average worker. I believe we can eventually portray Marx's project in one printer's sheet and earn Marx's and Engels' eternal gratitude. We'll resurrrect those suckers!

A letter to Capra in which we present him with his "baby" in adult form is also indicated.

First, though, we'll want to present our grown-up triangle to the Sciences and Environment Forum for a full group presentation and workout, won't we?


However you want to reach out with this for the sake of collaboration is fine by me.





As for portraying the future, Engels suggested a dialectical category of "spiral form of development" (plan outline for Dialectics of Nature). Spirals nicely point to a "future" and suggest dialectical relations of interdependence, contradiction, transformation, revolution, emergence, etc. There's lots of interaction and "motion and development" in a spiral.


You may want to work this 'spiral' aspect in somehow, perhaps to show a dimension of time (and development) unfolding -- possibly upwards-downwards.





I have previously posted a "new sciences" notation for a complete theory of evolution: "s-o/S-O," in which a living system's internal self-organization is inseparably linked to its external ("natural selection") environment of self-organizing systems, with all the emergences that result represented by the slash. I find this neatly encompasses the three major evolutionary forces--self-organization, selection, and emergence--and indicates life is a bootstrap of this organization. Does this make any sense to you?

Finally, and definitely not to nag, isn't it time to read The Web of Life?

Now I'll go to work on drawing "my" expression of our triangle. My 3:00 AM brainstorming leads to much mischief and homework. My red-green best.


Okay, glad to be in dialogue about this -- I'll hold off on a next round until we can finalize some of these particulars. Take care, later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, This post is hurried, as I have to take dog to vet shortly.

As to the matter of two triangles, one "naked," the other clothed in details, the paradigm shift in perception/consciousness I see as necessary has to do with people learning life's organization and organizing their minds in this manner to engage the human natural/social environment and provide their own details.

The "naked" triangle--Triangle 1--would starkly present the mental organization that replicates life's organization. The most radical, profound revelation the "red-green theory" has to offer is that matter has self-organized into the process of life on Earth, and that as self-organized material systems, people and their brains and their social systems must organize in this manner.

You are correct that I tend to neglect social organization in my campaign to get comrades to understand that our social systems must be naturally organized. Thus for Triangle 1, I suggest a simple triangle with Pattern (network), Matter (stuff), and Process (life activity) at its angles. Underneath, this triangle would be labeled: "Universal Pattern of Organization of Life and Viable Social Systems." Underneath this I would add: "Life is created by and composed of living systems: self-organized, integrated wholes that exist in dynamic interdependence with each other and physical environmental forces. These living systems, as the triangle models, are self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity. A cell is the base living system."

Triangle 2 would then be the more detailed model we are working on. Having two triangles might best engage both "systemicists" and "reductionists" and enable them to see the "other side." We are trying to generate minds that see both life's things and their organization.

A fly automatically enjoys "consciousness" of life's organization and is automatically ecologically organized. Humans, though, must consciously accomplish what the "lowly" fly automatically does, and this has been impossible prior to the new sciences of life's organization.

As for those pesky cubes, I only have a cluster of them in the center of the circle-triangle, and none at the angles. The external, environmental cubes are also in a cluster that indicates the massive, bootstrapped interconnection of living systems on Earth, and I have them tentatively represented by a simple circle enclosed by a simple triangle to show they are living systems. Their angles aren't labeled.

I don't like the text I wrote under the original triangle--too wordy. I'm trying to operate along the lines of: a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm thinking of models that people can engage to create their own words/details/actions.

The new sciences mathematician, Ralph Abraham, has published a book on ecological relations in which there is no text, just flow diagrams, and I'm thinking that the models we create are similarly to enable comrades to picture organization, engage their natural and social environments, and design anarchist/communist communities and revolutionary processes.

I may have missed some of your points. I'll get back to them, if so. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, acknowledged as well -- I'll be taking a closer look later, and will catch up.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, This post is hurried, as I have to take dog to vet shortly.

As to the matter of two triangles, one "naked," the other clothed in details, the paradigm shift in perception/consciousness I see as necessary has to do with people learning life's organization and organizing their minds in this manner to engage the human natural/social environment and provide their own details.


Okay.





The "naked" triangle--Triangle 1--would starkly present the mental organization that replicates life's organization. The most radical, profound revelation the "red-green theory" has to offer is that matter has self-organized into the process of life on Earth, and that as self-organized material systems, people and their brains and their social systems must organize in this manner.

You are correct that I tend to neglect social organization in my campaign to get comrades to understand that our social systems must be naturally organized. Thus for Triangle 1, I suggest a simple triangle with Pattern (network), Matter (stuff), and Process (life activity) at its angles. Underneath, this triangle would be labeled: "Universal Pattern of Organization of Life and Viable Social Systems." Underneath this I would add: "Life is created by and composed of living systems: self-organized, integrated wholes that exist in dynamic interdependence with each other and physical environmental forces. These living systems, as the triangle models, are self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity. A cell is the base living system."


Okay, understandable.





Triangle 2 would then be the more detailed model we are working on. Having two triangles might best engage both "systemicists" and "reductionists" and enable them to see the "other side." We are trying to generate minds that see both life's things and their organization.


Now I'm wondering what the relation would be between the two triangles -- how would they be presented? Would you consider them as separate constructions, for different demographics, or would they be side-by-side, or even as one 2-panel graphic?

From a technical standpoint none of this is a problem since most of it is done already and the 'second' triangle alteration is next-to-nothing.





A fly automatically enjoys "consciousness" of life's organization and is automatically ecologically organized. Humans, though, must consciously accomplish what the "lowly" fly automatically does, and this has been impossible prior to the new sciences of life's organization.

As for those pesky cubes, I only have a cluster of them in the center of the circle-triangle, and none at the angles. The external, environmental cubes are also in a cluster that indicates the massive, bootstrapped interconnection of living systems on Earth, and I have them tentatively represented by a simple circle enclosed by a simple triangle to show they are living systems. Their angles aren't labeled.


Yes -- again, can you speak to the aspect of self-similarity, and of having *several* of the smaller-version one scattered outside of the main one? (The existing "landscape" of little cubes would be gone, then.)





I don't like the text I wrote under the original triangle--too wordy. I'm trying to operate along the lines of: a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm thinking of models that people can engage to create their own words/details/actions.

The new sciences mathematician, Ralph Abraham, has published a book on ecological relations in which there is no text, just flow diagrams, and I'm thinking that the models we create are similarly to enable comrades to picture organization, engage their natural and social environments, and design anarchist/communist communities and revolutionary processes.

I may have missed some of your points. I'll get back to them, if so. My red-green best.


No prob -- I'll be attending to the alteration....

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, MN, here's the updated version. Let me know of any changes. Later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, We're progressing. Presentation/modeling of the triangle has already improved with the addition of Triangle 2. Triangle 1 serves as a "picture," and Triangle 2 as "text."

I'm really looking forward to our coming to a point where we are in enough agreement to present the triangle(s) to the forum.

I'm feeling the graphics are still too cluttered and busy, hence difficult for our graphic artist (you) and viewers. How about solid colors only for triangle, circle, cosmos, and cubes? Perhaps the cubes will best show up as white.

I picture those cubes as being small and in a little linked cluster in the center of the circle. Then a simple double arrow points to them and to the edge of the circle-triangle.

Outside the circle-triangle in environmental territory, I envision blank space save for another cluster of simple circle-triangles representing an environment of living systems to which the circle-triangle is connected via the extension of the double arrow into a quadruple arrow. The additional two points of this quadruple arrow point to the environmental cluster and back to the circle-triangle.

As to the placement of the two triangles, I see the Triangle 1 model as being accompanied and immediately followed by Triangle 2's details.

I believe this addresses any hanging questions. I want to again reference Murray Gell-Mann's aphorism, that life consists of surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity. Triangle 1 models that deep organizational simplicity, while Triangle 2 is to as simply as possible model the organizational process--the motion and development-- of life's organization. Triangle operators will be organizing themselves and their minds and operating in the schema of Triangle 2.

I believe this brings us up to date. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, acknowledged. I'll be back to it shortly.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, We're progressing. Presentation/modeling of the triangle has already improved with the addition of Triangle 2. Triangle 1 serves as a "picture," and Triangle 2 as "text."


I can't say that I agree with this presentation -- more ahead....





I'm really looking forward to our coming to a point where we are in enough agreement to present the triangle(s) to the forum.


Sure.





I'm feeling the graphics are still too cluttered and busy, hence difficult for our graphic artist (you) and viewers. How about solid colors only for triangle, circle, cosmos, and cubes? Perhaps the cubes will best show up as white.


I'd be glad to do a more 'clinical'-looking version, as you're indicating.





I picture those cubes as being small and in a little linked cluster in the center of the circle. Then a simple double arrow points to them and to the edge of the circle-triangle.


Okay, so you're saying to reduce the size of the circle and the cluster, to be within the circular band of the (existing) interior double-arrow(s), and to remove the exterior double-arrow(s) -- ? No prob.





Outside the circle-triangle in environmental territory, I envision blank space save for another cluster of simple circle-triangles representing an environment of living systems to which the circle-triangle is connected via the extension of the double arrow into a quadruple arrow. The additional two points of this quadruple arrow point to the environmental cluster and back to the circle-triangle.


That would be a grouping of triangle-circle-cube-clusters like the main one, correct -- ?

Should the existing arrangement of double-arrow sets remain as-is -- ? You're not very clear on this.





As to the placement of the two triangles, I see the Triangle 1 model as being accompanied and immediately followed by Triangle 2's details.

I believe this addresses any hanging questions. I want to again reference Murray Gell-Mann's aphorism, that life consists of surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity. Triangle 1 models that deep organizational simplicity, while Triangle 2 is to as simply as possible model the organizational process--the motion and development-- of life's organization. Triangle operators will be organizing themselves and their minds and operating in the schema of Triangle 2.

I believe this brings us up to date. My red-green best.


MN, I'm seeing this illustration so far veering far too much to the 'natural' side of things, as you've acknowledged, and its purpose for social-political instruction remains nebulous.

I am not going to a 2-triangle layout and I will not be making any substantive changes in the existing format until you can address this matter of *purpose* first. (You may want to include a fourth text block that speaks to this directly.)

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'm still not getting across to you and others what the triangle is all about. Capra's triangle models the "abstract," unseen organization that underlies life's things, and learning to work with this organization by we who must consciously organize our lives in life's pattern will necessitate a paradigm shift in perception/consciousness for the human species. Capra's triangle models and facilitates this paradigm shift.

The human species has now been organized by the capitalist system to operate as its agent, and this comes "easily" to us, for human perception/consciousness is reductive, and this matches up well with the reductive, quantifiying, divisive system of capitalism.

I'm scratching my head trying to think of a new, more effective way to respond to your remark re-triangle that "its purpose for social-political instruction remains nebulous." Well, organization is "nebulous," and I'm trying to make it visible and usable and the triangle accomplishes this, but people and their perception/consciousness want to see details and things. The triangle, though, portrays the organization by which people must learn to arrange their minds in order to engage their social/natural environment and create the details and things of their lives in life's pattern. And life's pattern is that of anarchism/communism.

I strongly believe the two triangles are an improvement over the single triangle. Triangle 1 is to starkly portray life's universal pattern of organization in the simplest, most radical manner possible. Triangle 2 then models the simple "details" by which matter self-organizes to life, and human beings are self-organized material systems who must consciously self-organize in the pattern of life, community, and anarchism/communism.

I drew both triangles for my own satisfaction several days ago. The text isn't important, but the visuals are, and it is proving difficult to communicate a radical paradigm shift involving abstract organizational relations in thingy-dingy words. Words are things that tend to portray life as a collection of things. It sure would be simpler for me to send you my clumsy drawings, as they portray what I see as needing to be shown.

The purpose of the triangle is to enable people to see and create life in life's pattern--the pattern of anarchism and communism. This project is based in the new sciences that affirm Marxism, communism, and the materialist dialectic, and it is scientifically verifiable overall, but it sure is proving difficult to get "scientific socialism" to engage the new, revolutionary sciences.

It shouldn't surprise me by now that everyone has such a problem grasping the triangle's message, though, for a radical paradigm shift in human perception/consciousness is indeed required. Learning to see life's organization presents problems similar to those encountered by the new physicists as they engaged the worlds that underlie the apparent "things" of life and the cosmos. Einstein: "It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.

In any case, I find the "Capra's triangle project" has moved forward with the addition of that second triangle.

I continue with this project because I have no choice psychologically, and because I maintain the hope that ostensible revolutionaries can still "get radical."

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'm still not getting across to you and others what the triangle is all about. Capra's triangle models the "abstract," unseen organization that underlies life's things, and learning to work with this organization by we who must consciously organize our lives in life's pattern will necessitate a paradigm shift in perception/consciousness for the human species. Capra's triangle models and facilitates this paradigm shift.

The human species has now been organized by the capitalist system to operate as its agent, and this comes "easily" to us, for human perception/consciousness is reductive, and this matches up well with the reductive, quantifiying, divisive system of capitalism.

I'm scratching my head trying to think of a new, more effective way to respond to your remark re-triangle that "its purpose for social-political instruction remains nebulous." Well, organization is "nebulous," and I'm trying to make it visible and usable and the triangle accomplishes this, but people and their perception/consciousness want to see details and things. The triangle, though, portrays the organization by which people must learn to arrange their minds in order to engage their social/natural environment and create the details and things of their lives in life's pattern. And life's pattern is that of anarchism/communism.


I continue to appreciate your motivation here, MN, and I like to think that what you're trying to get across will be pertinent to the average person, and to those who are politically and activist-minded. I also like what I've been able to construct so far, at your direction, and remain hopeful that there can be a final graphic depiction that is satisfactory to this end.

I have to reiterate, though, that including descriptions that *only* reference natural systems leads the reader to think in terms of -- guess what? *Natural* systems. There *has* to be a bridge of concepts expressed that takes the reader to a realization that the forms nature uses are also forms that can be effectively used in a conscious manner for social and political revolutionary organizing and impact.

If you look back at this thread's posts you'll see that I noted those times at which you stepped forward into actually addressing the social / political aspects, with your line -- maybe that can be helpful at this point in things.





I strongly believe the two triangles are an improvement over the single triangle. Triangle 1 is to starkly portray life's universal pattern of organization in the simplest, most radical manner possible. Triangle 2 then models the simple "details" by which matter self-organizes to life, and human beings are self-organized material systems who must consciously self-organize in the pattern of life, community, and anarchism/communism.


Okay, I'll be open-minded to the 2-triangle format, but at this point I'm going to need to see -- and be confident in knowing -- that the graphic depiction decided-on will actually be relevant to the social / political context.





I drew both triangles for my own satisfaction several days ago. The text isn't important, but the visuals are, and it is proving difficult to communicate a radical paradigm shift involving abstract organizational relations in thingy-dingy words. Words are things that tend to portray life as a collection of things. It sure would be simpler for me to send you my clumsy drawings, as they portray what I see as needing to be shown.


Okay -- you can either scan those or take a photo of them with a digital camera, and then attach the resulting jpg images to a post here.





The purpose of the triangle is to enable people to see and create life in life's pattern--the pattern of anarchism and communism. This project is based in the new sciences that affirm Marxism, communism, and the materialist dialectic, and it is scientifically verifiable overall, but it sure is proving difficult to get "scientific socialism" to engage the new, revolutionary sciences.


This statement *isn't* encouraging, because you're putting the cart before the horse here. If you want to get "scientific socialism to engage the new, revolutionary sciences" then you have to *show* how the latter is *relevant* to the former.





It shouldn't surprise me by now that everyone has such a problem grasping the triangle's message, though, for a radical paradigm shift in human perception/consciousness is indeed required. Learning to see life's organization presents problems similar to those encountered by the new physicists as they engaged the worlds that underlie the apparent "things" of life and the cosmos. Einstein: "It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.

In any case, I find the "Capra's triangle project" has moved forward with the addition of that second triangle.

I continue with this project because I have no choice psychologically, and because I maintain the hope that ostensible revolutionaries can still "get radical."

My red-green best.


Good luck -- I'll do what I can, MN.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Let's take a day off from this. I need to catch some fish to put in my freezer for winter.

The whole thrust of the "red-green project" is to enable persons to see that nature's organization is natural human (anarchist/communist) organization, and that Capra's triangle models life's universal pattern of organization to we who must get organized. I believe I have expressed this natural/human social connection many dozens of times in my posts. It is my constant theme, and Marx and Engels preceded me and the new sciences when they declared dialectics to be the "science of the general laws of nature, human society, and thought. So you can see they had a "universal" perspective on the organization of existence.

I am finding it rare to encounter comrades who understand that Marx's and Engels' and Marxism's socio-economic roots sink deeply into natural soil. Anarchism and communism are natural, dammit!

I'll be taking a computer course this winter and will then be able to do more than post. I can't even link yet, so I can't send you anything via computer.

Dog and I are off to the ocean! My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Let's take a day off from this. I need to catch some fish to put in my freezer for winter.


Okay -- this is entirely your prerogative, so there's no set timeframe for it.





The whole thrust of the "red-green project" is to enable persons to see that nature's organization is natural human (anarchist/communist) organization, and that Capra's triangle models life's universal pattern of organization to we who must get organized. I believe I have expressed this natural/human social connection many dozens of times in my posts.


Perhaps, but I hope you appreciate my point that it's not evident in the graphic as it is now.





It is my constant theme, and Marx and Engels preceded me and the new sciences when they declared dialectics to be the "science of the general laws of nature, human society, and thought. So you can see they had a "universal" perspective on the organization of existence.

I am finding it rare to encounter comrades who understand that Marx's and Engels' and Marxism's socio-economic roots sink deeply into natural soil. Anarchism and communism are natural, dammit!


Okay -- take some time away from it and maybe that will help with perspective on it.





I'll be taking a computer course this winter and will then be able to do more than post. I can't even link yet, so I can't send you anything via computer.

Dog and I are off to the ocean! My red-green best.


Take care, later.

[Francois057]

Thank you for this posting. I think it would be helpful for all. Personally I like this post.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, The fish were mainly unwilling, and I'm going after the survivors today. I also came up with a simple way to perhaps get beyond our impasse: I'll simply provide some tentative but exact directions for the triangle.

I do appreciate your collaboration on this matter, and believe it would be most worthwhile to have a simple portrayal of the triangle to post in a Sciences and Environment thread.

Here's the triangle I drew several days ago. There are no colors (my earlier suggestion to color this is at least temporarily discarded), for I see a need for the triangle to be as simple as possible. Again: the triangle models the manner in which life organizes and in which we must organize our minds to provide our own living details in our own life situations.

The Triangle: Draw a circle 4 inches in diameter and enclose it within an equilateral triangle. Label the triangle's angles "PATTERN (network)"; "MATTER (stuff)"; and "PROCESS (life activity)". Under the triangle write "UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF A LIVING SYSTEM."

At the top of and inside the circle, write 'living system." In the center of the circle, draw a two-inch in diameter cluster operhaps 15 small circles (1/4 inch diameter) with straight lines between some of them to indicate linked organization. Under this cluster write "self-organizing components." Now draw a double arrow from this cluster to the edge of the circle-triangle.

We're almost there! All that's left is the universe. We'll simplify that sucker, too.

Draw another cluster of 15 or so linked simple circles an inch outside the circle-triangle and extend the internal double arrow into a quadruple arrow with its new heads pointing to cosmic cluster and from it back to circle-triangle. Label this external cluster "environment."

That's it! We can work on the underlying text defining self-organization, emergence, and a living system later. The circle we have drawn shows matter self-organizing into a living system that is dynamically interdependent with its environment. The triangle then reductively models the inseparable universal pattern of organization of a living system, and thereby enables our human reductive minds to design living social systems that are self-organized matter network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; how they make their living) in their environment.

Wouldn't the various forms of anarchism/communism be network-patterned people self-organizing into their means of work and life?

I like today's post. I hope you find it of value, too. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Apologies for the delay, MN -- been having issues with the net service over here. Will catch up asap. Take care.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I frequently have net issues, as recently as this morning.

I've returned to an earlier idea of yours: having Process point to the external environmental cluster outside circle-triangle. Yes! Process dynamically interrelates a living system to life. So now I'm seeing the circle-triangle's internal cluster of components with that quadruple arrow pointing through the Process angle to the external environmental cluster. This quadruple arrow's internal double arrow will point from internal cluster to circle, indicating self-organization and emergence into a whole with parts/whole and whole/parts relations. This quadruple arrow would then continue through circle and Process angle to the external environmental cluster, with its external double arrow pointing to external cluster and back again, indicating dynamic interdependence and natural selection.

This quadruple arrow now portrays life as a bootstrap of self-organizing, emergent living systems that are: self-organized Matter network-Patterned with their life activity--their dynamic integration into the life process.

I definitely feel Capra's triangle has been improved by our discussion so far. I envision a simple triangle modelling life's universal pattern of organization with Pattern/Matter/Process, to be followed by our more elaborate, detailed picture of the self-organization of a living system and the life process.

Triangle 2 also serves to show people how to organize themselves and their minds in a revolutionary brainstorming process.

Capra's triangle models life's organization, while the materialist dialectic focuses on life's motion and development once it has been organized. Thus the triangle is a deeper, more radical concept than the dialectic, although they need to exist together, as they do in life. It will be most interesting when we and others marry the triangle to the dialectic. It will be most interesting and revolutionary.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

"UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF A LIVING SYSTEM."


MN, just on the basis of your revised title you're actually taking a step *backward* in political content.

As time permits I'll go over this thread and propose a revision that makes the social-political aspect more evident, while retaining your general direction so far, and incorporating the graphic-oriented revisions you've mentioned.

I anticipate being back to normal connectivity soon. Take care.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Everything I think and write has to do with bringing natural organization that is "communist" organization to human social systems, and the eventual text we decide upon must emphasize this. So keep us on task, but don't become overly worried by any temporary miswordings I might supply.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Everything I think and write has to do with bringing natural organization that is "communist" organization to human social systems, and the eventual text we decide upon must emphasize this. So keep us on task, but don't become overly worried by any temporary miswordings I might supply.

My red-green best.


Okay, back to regular connectivity now.

MN, I appreciate your intentions regarding all of this -- thanks for taking a slightly looser grip on the reins. I'll see what I can come up with, based strictly from the content of this thread.

My concern, of course, is that whatever we decide on for the graphic *conveys* the sense of overlap from the natural domain to the social-political one.

My schedule has changed somewhat recently, in addition to the now-past connectivity issues, so my time is less available, unfortunately, but I will be looking over everything in a thorough way to see what I can offer in the way of suitable additions.

Thanks for your patience, MN, and all the best.

[ckaihatsu]

Just thought of something -- the 3 conceptual dimensions indicated by the 3 points of the triangle can be 'leveraged' using dialectics to form 3 additional, *complementary* conceptual dimensions that belong to the emergent social-political realm.

So, to "do the math":

matter x pattern = society, social relations

matter x process = labor

pattern x process = organization


I don't have any copy (text) to add in yet, but I'll be going over that....

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'm taking some time to think through those three complementary, dialectical constructions of yours.

I need to keep those "loose reins" to which you referred. As the new science shows, all living systems self-organize, and therefore I cannot "organize others." They organize themselves, and at best I can only provide the stimulus for this self-organization. As a Marxist and "new scientist," too, I know that all life and anarchism/communism self-organize from the bottom up, and then from there create new systemic levels with new, emergent properties.

So life, anarchism/communism, and the new sciences are deeply democratic. As for patience, I've been at this for thirteen years, and your much-appreciated participation is as good as I've gotten.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

So life, anarchism/communism, and the new sciences are deeply democratic. As for patience, I've been at this for thirteen years, and your much-appreciated participation is as good as I've gotten.

My red-green best.


Thanks, MN. I'm finding this to be a valuable political project, and your research and enthusiasm is instrumental here.





ckaihatsu, I'm taking some time to think through those three complementary, dialectical constructions of yours.


Okay.





I need to keep those "loose reins" to which you referred. As the new science shows, all living systems self-organize, and therefore I cannot "organize others." They organize themselves, and at best I can only provide the stimulus for this self-organization. As a Marxist and "new scientist," too, I know that all life and anarchism/communism self-organize from the bottom up, and then from there create new systemic levels with new, emergent properties.


To me this sounds like you're kind of "on the fence" regarding a direction from here -- to clarify, are you more inclined towards providing a plan for how this should go at this point, or are you saying that you're rather *not* organize it -- ?

As long as you're open to continuing a collaboration of some sort -- there are only two of us here, after all -- I'd be fine with continuing this discussion.

I'll see what I can do to develop some (social-political) content that is complementary to what already exists on the most recent version of the graphic, text-wise.

Once we have some content that is agreeable to the both of us it will be no problem for me to go ahead and put it into graphic form, per your existing notes.

Take care, later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, What I meant by my references to "loose reins" and self-organization is that we, as individual living systems organizing together, must organize in the manner that the rest of life "self-organizes together." Life indeed has a universal pattern of organization from which its myriad expressions and forms emerge, and all of this begins with self-organizing, self-directing, self-controlling "individual" systems forming new, social systems.

And isn't this how anarchism and communism are to function? And Marx's materialist dialectic is a natural, universal dialectic: a "science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought."

I believe it to be of potentially the greatest importance that our project is in accord with both Marxism and science, and that Marxian and Hegelian philosophy was able to foresee the actual organizational relations of life and healthy human social systems.

So the purpose of this project, as I see it, is to develop the two triangles and text into the most simple forms possible, in order to make them accessible to the regular people who must eventually create anarchist/communist revolutionary processes into a realized, natural human future.

I'm not seeing your "matter x pattern = society, social relations; matter x process = labor; pattern x process = organization." It is critical but difficult to realize that these three elements (Pattern/Matter/Process) have been reductively extracted from the inseparable unity of life's universal pattern of organization. So I'm feeling that breaking this inseparable unity into internal pairs doesn't really illuminate, and it tends to emphasize the reductivity to which the human mind is addicted and from which we must move and learn to see and employ systemic, organizational relations.

As for the project as a whole, I see us refining both triangle models and text. I'm seeing Triangle 1 as a simple portrayal of Capra's Triangle, which has the three elements of Pattern/Matter/Process at its angles and represents the universal pattern of organization of a living (thus social) system.

Triangle 2 would then model in simple detail a living system's self-organizing components creating the living system that is dynamically interdependent with its environment. Thus we have that internal cluster quadruple-arrowed from itself to the system it creates and back again (parts make whole that makes parts) and then through the Process angle to the environment and back again (living systems create the environment that creates them).

The above triangles portray the universal pattern of organization that enables living systems to organize themselves and engage the rest of life in its dialectical, dynamic motion and development. These triangles are to enable the human species to consciously function as a living system on Earth.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, What I meant by my references to "loose reins" and self-organization is that we, as individual living systems organizing together, must organize in the manner that the rest of life "self-organizes together." Life indeed has a universal pattern of organization from which its myriad expressions and forms emerge, and all of this begins with self-organizing, self-directing, self-controlling "individual" systems forming new, social systems.


Okay, agreed.





And isn't this how anarchism and communism are to function?


Yes.





And Marx's materialist dialectic is a natural, universal dialectic: a "science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought."

I believe it to be of potentially the greatest importance that our project is in accord with both Marxism and science, and that Marxian and Hegelian philosophy was able to foresee the actual organizational relations of life and healthy human social systems.




So the purpose of this project, as I see it, is to develop the two triangles and text into the most simple forms possible, in order to make them accessible to the regular people who must eventually create anarchist/communist revolutionary processes into a realized, natural human future.


Okay, I continue to understand and appreciate your intentions here, but I'm not sure that the composition as you've described it *will* "[be] accessible to the regular people who must eventually create anarchist/communist revolutionary processes into a realized, natural human future."

I see much potential residing here but it will be *counter*-productive if what is produced doesn't fulfill its intended function and is less-than-illustrative of its point.





I'm not seeing your "matter x pattern = society, social relations; matter x process = labor; pattern x process = organization."


I'm very sorry to hear this -- it makes a lot of sense from a (revolutionary) leftist perspective and would serve well to show the social/political emergence that results from the natural realm. (The 'society', 'labor', and 'organization' could be positioned at the three complementary spaces between 'matter', 'pattern', and 'process'.)





It is critical but difficult to realize that these three elements (Pattern/Matter/Process) have been reductively extracted from the inseparable unity of life's universal pattern of organization. So I'm feeling that breaking this inseparable unity into internal pairs doesn't really illuminate, and it tends to emphasize the reductivity to which the human mind is addicted and from which we must move and learn to see and employ systemic, organizational relations.


I appreciate your critique of reductionism, but I think what can be accomplished here is to *use* reductive concepts in a *visual* way to *depict* a dialectical merging and blending that *transcends* base linear reductionism -- this is already shown in the image we have so far, but what remains is to do the same for the social-political in the same way -- hence the 'society', 'labor', 'organization' aspect.





As for the project as a whole, I see us refining both triangle models and text. I'm seeing Triangle 1 as a simple portrayal of Capra's Triangle, which has the three elements of Pattern/Matter/Process at its angles and represents the universal pattern of organization of a living (thus social) system.

Triangle 2 would then model in simple detail a living system's self-organizing components creating the living system that is dynamically interdependent with its environment. Thus we have that internal cluster quadruple-arrowed from itself to the system it creates and back again (parts make whole that makes parts) and then through the Process angle to the environment and back again (living systems create the environment that creates them).

The above triangles portray the universal pattern of organization that enables living systems to organize themselves and engage the rest of life in its dialectical, dynamic motion and development. These triangles are to enable the human species to consciously function as a living system on Earth.

My red-green best.


Yes, this is a repeating of what you've already put forward, and I've noted that I'm not convinced that this portrayal would be instructive or helpful for the social-political domain.

You've also suggested a single, 'simple' version of the layout, which varies only slightly from what we already have.

If we continue to go in circles regarding the point we're at then it will be absolutely clear that we're at an impasse.

[bots]

what the heck is going on in here

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'm still not seeing those internal pairs; I still see the three reducted elements of a living system's organization as necessarily inseparable. I don't see where "matter x pattern = society" makes organizational sense. You would have to add its "economic activity"--its Process (life activity)-- for Matter and Pattern to constitute a living system. It would still need to be "Matter x Pattern x Process = Society (a living system).

Bots, ckaihatsu and I are working on bringing a popularly usable, complete materialist dialectic to life for revolutionary purposes. We are conducting this "dialogue" in the open prior to introducing a more polished Capra's triangle/materialist dialectic in a thread. This "new, usable dialectic" is based in the new sciences of the organizational relations of life and society, and this new science closely parallels the relations of the Marxist materialist dialectic.

In doing this, we are, in a sense, introducing organizational relations to a reductive human perception/consciousness that sees the things of life but is blind to their essential organization. We are trying to surmount a "consciousness barrier," and it is a very hard go. But it is also a deeply radical, revolutionary project.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'm still not seeing those internal pairs; I still see the three reducted elements of a living system's organization as necessarily inseparable. I don't see where "matter x pattern = society" makes organizational sense. You would have to add its "economic activity"--its Process (life activity)-- for Matter and Pattern to constitute a living system. It would still need to be "Matter x Pattern x Process = Society (a living system).


Okay -- for the record I'll just note that I am comfortable with my own 'society-labor-organization' formulation, as mentioned.

To extend the direction you're indicating, would it make sense to have a Triangle-2 analogue to matter-pattern-process by having something like a _________-_________-'economic activity' at those congruent points -- ?

(If you could develop something along these lines it would serve to illuminate the social-political aspect.)

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, An important point the triangle models is that all living systems are "economic systems" whose organization enables them to produce the energy and relations necessary to their being. I have made this point over and over in various forums, but comrades have a big problem seeing this.

On Earth, Matter has self-organized into network-Patterned living "economic" systems (Process). These living systems vary from bacteria to whales, to ants and the colonies they form, to the surfperch I'll catch today and the schools they form, and to people and our social systems (if the latter are self-organized by their people in the pattern of life).

Despite our many evolutionary and organizational emergences and a towering and unwarranted species conceit, human beings, too, are self-organized material systems and we must self-organize ourselves in the manner by which stuff comes to life on Earth. There is no human exceptionalism to embrace and celebrate. In fact, humanity with its reliance on consciousness is "behind" the rest of life, for we must know how to do what the rest of life automatically accomplishes. Humans must know how to organize themselves as material beings into living social systems.

And again: all of these systems function as economic systems that engage life in a manner that produces the energy and relations necessary to "make their living" and keep going. And the pattern for all these systems is the same and is the pattern of anarchism and communism.

To answer a question of yours, I can't at present see adding any additional wording to the Triangle 2 model, for that would clutter what I feel needs to be a simple-as-possible model. However, there will be text underneath where we will eventually decide upon the best explanation for the simple model.

But life has a universal pattern of organization, and our complicated human minds find it most difficult to grasp this deep simplicity. I'll again offer Murray Gell-Mann's profoundly simple observation that life is "surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity."

Perhaps you will find it significant as well as interesting that Gell-Mann, in effect the father of the Santa Fe Institute, was unable to pursue his co-emphasis on deep simplicity at SFI. SFI insisted on focusing on complexity by itself, but where does that complexity come from? It emerges from the deep simplicity of the organization of life on Earth. Life has simple rules, complex results.

The most deeply radical understanding that arises from what I am tentatively terming "a red-green theory" is that all life on Earth emerges from the self-organization of matter in the universal pattern the triangle models. This understanding tests the ability of the human mind to grasp organizational relations, especially very simple organizational relations that generate an astounding complexity.

Perhaps it will also help to surmount the many difficulties and temporary disagreements we might have to remember that we are pioneering where no one has gone before. The Bolshevik, Alexander Bogdanov, seems to have envisioned such a universal science of organization, but lacked much of the science and all of Capra's triangle.

We have the science and the triangle.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, An important point the triangle models is that all living systems are "economic systems" whose organization enables them to produce the energy and relations necessary to their being. I have made this point over and over in various forums, but comrades have a big problem seeing this.


Yes.





On Earth, Matter has self-organized into network-Patterned living "economic" systems (Process). These living systems vary from bacteria to whales, to ants and the colonies they form, to the surfperch I'll catch today and the schools they form, and to people and our social systems (if the latter are self-organized by their people in the pattern of life).




Despite our many evolutionary and organizational emergences and a towering and unwarranted species conceit, human beings, too, are self-organized material systems and we must self-organize ourselves in the manner by which stuff comes to life on Earth. There is no human exceptionalism to embrace and celebrate. In fact, humanity with its reliance on consciousness is "behind" the rest of life, for we must know how to do what the rest of life automatically accomplishes. Humans must know how to organize themselves as material beings into living social systems.


You're ignoring a key quality of humanity -- and this is also probably why the project is at a standstill -- only human beings have been able to *transform* material qualities, and now on vast scales.

'[Organizing] into living social systems' to merely *ape* the animals is beneath us, and humanity has accomplished much by being able to *consciously* create and invent new techniques that are well beyond the abilities of all other animals.

I will note that you tend to favor the 'pattern (network)' aspect of the social-political realm, over the 'material'.





And again: all of these systems function as economic systems that engage life in a manner that produces the energy and relations necessary to "make their living" and keep going. And the pattern for all these systems is the same and is the pattern of anarchism and communism.


I don't disagree here, but, ironically, I think you're falling victim to the reductionism you rail against, with this pattern-favoritism.





To answer a question of yours, I can't at present see adding any additional wording to the Triangle 2 model, for that would clutter what I feel needs to be a simple-as-possible model. However, there will be text underneath where we will eventually decide upon the best explanation for the simple model.


Okay, understandable. Feel free to continue to develop and describe in whatever directions, and I'll be focusing on doing some pictoral updates so that we can both look at the same thing visually.





But life has a universal pattern of organization, and our complicated human minds find it most difficult to grasp this deep simplicity. I'll again offer Murray Gell-Mann's profoundly simple observation that life is "surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity."

Perhaps you will find it significant as well as interesting that Gell-Mann, in effect the father of the Santa Fe Institute, was unable to pursue his co-emphasis on deep simplicity at SFI. SFI insisted on focusing on complexity by itself, but where does that complexity come from? It emerges from the deep simplicity of the organization of life on Earth. Life has simple rules, complex results.

The most deeply radical understanding that arises from what I am tentatively terming "a red-green theory" is that all life on Earth emerges from the self-organization of matter in the universal pattern the triangle models. This understanding tests the ability of the human mind to grasp organizational relations, especially very simple organizational relations that generate an astounding complexity.

Perhaps it will also help to surmount the many difficulties and temporary disagreements we might have to remember that we are pioneering where no one has gone before. The Bolshevik, Alexander Bogdanov, seems to have envisioned such a universal science of organization, but lacked much of the science and all of Capra's triangle.

We have the science and the triangle.

My red-green best.


Yup. Later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, We seem to be having some misunderstandings over life's inseparable, universal pattern of organization that Capra has reductively (Pattern/Matter/Process) but masterfully pulled from the clutter of life. Thus Matter x Pattern cannot form a society or social relations until it is made whole by Process. Otherwise, what matter and what pattern are we to employ? Pattern/Matter/Process are an inseparable unity that we must pick apart, then reunite, in the service of our reductive minds.

So persons using the triangle know that they must organize themselves and their tools into a network pattern that engages their project. Formal brainstorming sessions do this all the time.

Thus it is a misperception to believe I favor pattern over matter, for I see them as inseparably united. The physical stuff is always in the network pattern, and a project becomes complete when the network-patterned stuff is merged with its life activity/ meaning and purpose: a particular project.

You wrote, "Only human beings have been able to transform material qualities, and now on vast scales." Well, I'd say that "lower" animals transform material qualities all the time, albeit automatically. I was looking at a sand dollar recently, whose "shell" was composed of sand grains it had glued together in some manner. And shrimp take raw materials and manufacture a shell. For that matter, organic molecules in Earth's early atmosphere manufactured the life process.

So human beings consciously produce their lives--yes--but must learn to do so in the pattern of life and not capitalism.

The preceding remarks also pertain to your statement, "Humanity has accomplished much by being able to consciously create and invent new techniques that are well beyond the abilities of the lower animals."

Those lower animals, ckaihatsu, naturally invented life, and now humanity must consciously invent in the pattern by which matter, people, and social systems come to life.

Capra's triangle is the invention for all times. Should we apply for a patent once we get something together? (Joke)

I suggest we knock out that simple Triangle 1 with underlying text and then proceed to Triangle 2. Triangle 1 as I envision it is a simple triangle with Pattern(network)/Matter (stuff)/Process (life activity) at its angles. Inside the triangle I a simple statement along the lines of "Self-Organizing Living System (and healthy human social system)" The parenthetical part is clumsy. Any suggestions? I want to emphasize somehow that humans and our social systems must be naturally organized in life's pattern, which is certainly one of your emphases.

I'm thinking of starting a "self-organization" thread in Science and Environment, prior to any triangle introduction. Almost no one understands self-organization in this forum, and this scientific phenomenon is absolutely essential to life, communism, and revolution. And the triangle. Any reason this is a bad idea?

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, MN, here are the latest -- feel free to comment, and I'll reply to your post later. Take care.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'm looking at your thumbnails and "digesting" them. My last post outlined a most simple triangle that I like as Triangle 1, but I mislabelled it internally. The only internal text should read something along the lines of, "Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems." I see the triangle as a simple line drawing with a white background with its angles labeled as proposed, and with a very limited defining text underneath.

I'm seeing Triangle 1's underlying text as covering three points: a statement that the triangle reductively splits the inseparable unity of life's pattern of organization into three parts for comprehension and use, a definition of a living system, and a statement that human social systems must be organized in life's pattern.

Here are very tentative proposals for those three text statements: "Capra's triangle reductively splits life's universal, inseparable pattern of organization into three parts for comprehension and use.
And: "Living systems are self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; how they make their living). A cell is the base living system, and cells combine to emerge into "higher" forms of life, but all living systems have the same pattern of organization."
And: Human social systems must be organized in life's pattern, and anarchism and communism manifest this organization."

Thanks for your work on the thumbnails. I've gone to work on that proposed thread on self-organization, which is an absolutely crucial concept to the understanding of the organization of life and society.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, We seem to be having some misunderstandings over life's inseparable, universal pattern of organization that Capra has reductively (Pattern/Matter/Process) but masterfully pulled from the clutter of life. Thus Matter x Pattern cannot form a society or social relations until it is made whole by Process. Otherwise, what matter and what pattern are we to employ? Pattern/Matter/Process are an inseparable unity that we must pick apart, then reunite, in the service of our reductive minds.


Yes, I do appreciate your point here, MN, but the trade-off with a visual representation -- and certainly with text descriptions, as you know -- is that no *one* indicator, or label, will suffice to summarize the entire complexity of what we're trying to convey.

The three main categories of 'matter', 'pattern', and 'process' are each too abstracting and reductionistic on their own, only encouraging idealism -- *if taken separately*. The whole point of doing a triangular diagram is to show, using visual space, that the reductionism inherent to each can be overcome through their *overlapping* and *combining*, as into the center of the triangular space.

Likewise, the structure of concepts I've now provided in the label-based diagram is only as good as one's whole-istic interpreting of it -- if one chooses to only focus on one *side* of the triangular configuration, as for 'society, social relations', then one *will* miss out on that aspect's relation to the other two sides, 'labor' and 'organization'.





So persons using the triangle know that they must organize themselves and their tools into a network pattern that engages their project. Formal brainstorming sessions do this all the time.


Okay -- yes. I'm glad that you included more societal concepts in this posting, and I incorporated them into the label-based diagram.





Thus it is a misperception to believe I favor pattern over matter, for I see them as inseparably united.


Okay, it's possible that I have mischaracterized your attitude to the 3 aspects of the triangle. It's just that, from what I've been seeing, you rarely, if ever, address the 'material' aspect in your writing.





The physical stuff is always in the network pattern, and a project becomes complete when the network-patterned stuff is merged with its life activity/ meaning and purpose: a particular project.


Yes, I incorporated this concept.





You wrote, "Only human beings have been able to transform material qualities, and now on vast scales." Well, I'd say that "lower" animals transform material qualities all the time, albeit automatically. I was looking at a sand dollar recently, whose "shell" was composed of sand grains it had glued together in some manner. And shrimp take raw materials and manufacture a shell. For that matter, organic molecules in Earth's early atmosphere manufactured the life process.


This is edifying, of course, but I'll gently remind you that we're discussing on a *political* message board, so your nature-sidedness may increasingly look misplaced.





So human beings consciously produce their lives--yes--but must learn to do so in the pattern of life and not capitalism.

The preceding remarks also pertain to your statement, "Humanity has accomplished much by being able to consciously create and invent new techniques that are well beyond the abilities of the lower animals."

Those lower animals, ckaihatsu, naturally invented life, and now humanity must consciously invent in the pattern by which matter, people, and social systems come to life.


I would hope you could make a *distinction* here, though, and perhaps specify how humanity's *conscious* organization of our own lives and activities -- as for socialism -- would be distinct from the natural habits of animals in the wild.

Also, even animals themselves -- the natural world -- didn't 'invent' life and living -- it's more or less a surprise and ad-hoc phenomenon for any-*one* or any-*thing* living. It's not exactly 'expected' or 'planned', much less 'invented'.





Capra's triangle is the invention for all times. Should we apply for a patent once we get something together? (Joke)


(Grin.)

That reminds me, though -- please let me know about attribution for all of this. I can't finalize it without a decision on how to display credits and acknowledgements. Thanks.





I suggest we knock out that simple Triangle 1 with underlying text and then proceed to Triangle 2. Triangle 1 as I envision it is a simple triangle with Pattern(network)/Matter (stuff)/Process (life activity) at its angles. Inside the triangle I a simple statement along the lines of "Self-Organizing Living System (and healthy human social system)" The parenthetical part is clumsy. Any suggestions? I want to emphasize somehow that humans and our social systems must be naturally organized in life's pattern, which is certainly one of your emphases.


Okay, I don't think I got it *precisely* correct, but feel free to comment and critique -- minor changes are relatively easier to make.





I'm thinking of starting a "self-organization" thread in Science and Environment, prior to any triangle introduction. Almost no one understands self-organization in this forum, and this scientific phenomenon is absolutely essential to life, communism, and revolution. And the triangle. Any reason this is a bad idea?

My red-green best.


No, definitely not -- please include a link here once you have it going. My advice would be to make it as relevant to a *political* context and audience as possible.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'm looking at your thumbnails and "digesting" them. My last post outlined a most simple triangle that I like as Triangle 1, but I mislabelled it internally. The only internal text should read something along the lines of, "Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems." I see the triangle as a simple line drawing with a white background with its angles labeled as proposed, and with a very limited defining text underneath.

I'm seeing Triangle 1's underlying text as covering three points: a statement that the triangle reductively splits the inseparable unity of life's pattern of organization into three parts for comprehension and use, a definition of a living system, and a statement that human social systems must be organized in life's pattern.

Here are very tentative proposals for those three text statements: "Capra's triangle reductively splits life's universal, inseparable pattern of organization into three parts for comprehension and use.
And: "Living systems are self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; how they make their living). A cell is the base living system, and cells combine to emerge into "higher" forms of life, but all living systems have the same pattern of organization."
And: Human social systems must be organized in life's pattern, and anarchism and communism manifest this organization."

Thanks for your work on the thumbnails. I've gone to work on that proposed thread on self-organization, which is an absolutely crucial concept to the understanding of the organization of life and society.

My red-green best.


Okay, MN, I'll be going over this thoroughly to see that I can represent your description accurately for the next round. Later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Damn, I just composed and lost a longer post to you. I forgot to hit "send."

We seem to be progressing. I suggest we focus on the simple portrayal of Triangle 1, then move to text, and once Triangle 1 is "finished" we can move to Triangle 2.

It seems to me that text underneath Triangle 1 should also state that the universal pattern of organization portrayed states all living systems are "self-organized Material systems network-Patterned with their life activity (Process)."

My "nature-sidedness" emphasis probably has to do with the current overemphasis on humans and human society as separate from nature. Nature, though, has self-organized into living systems, and it is our human nature to do this, too, although people must consciously reproduce a natural organization they cannot see.

As for the attribution that might accompany any triangle presentation of ours, I see the triangle as "Capra's triangle." Right now, I am the only person, perhaps, to see the unique, transcendent significance of Capra's creation, but it's there. I am absolutely convinced that Capra has created the key to the human future if there is to be one. Capra's triangle can bring the Marxist materialist dialectic to life and praxis. Capra's triangle can bring the human species to full mental life and praxis.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Damn, I just composed and lost a longer post to you. I forgot to hit "send."


Reminder: Use a text editor.





We seem to be progressing. I suggest we focus on the simple portrayal of Triangle 1, then move to text, and once Triangle 1 is "finished" we can move to Triangle 2.


Okay.





It seems to me that text underneath Triangle 1 should also state that the universal pattern of organization portrayed states all living systems are "self-organized Material systems network-Patterned with their life activity (Process)."


Noted, along with related recent material.





My "nature-sidedness" emphasis probably has to do with the current overemphasis on humans and human society as separate from nature. Nature, though, has self-organized into living systems, and it is our human nature to do this, too, although people must consciously reproduce a natural organization they cannot see.




As for the attribution that might accompany any triangle presentation of ours, I see the triangle as "Capra's triangle." Right now, I am the only person, perhaps, to see the unique, transcendent significance of Capra's creation, but it's there.


Please apply it to the diagram -- what text, exactly, should be displayed on the graphic for attribution (along with the verbatim text you've provided for descriptive purposes) -- ?

Also, my signature logo is optional -- I've left it off of certain diagrammatic illustrations I've done for reasons of good taste and appropriateness.





I am absolutely convinced that Capra has created the key to the human future if there is to be one. Capra's triangle can bring the Marxist materialist dialectic to life and praxis. Capra's triangle can bring the human species to full mental life and praxis.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I got up this morning and resolved to knock out a full preliminary proposition for Triangle 1. Remember that we are working on this together and that all of my suggestions are just that: suggestions. As for attribution, Capra has supplied the triangle, I am supplying its interpretation, and you are the graphics artist and co-conspirator. Your signature with the graphics is appropriate.

As for the actual model of Triangle 1, I am seeing that simple line drawing on a white background with its angles labeled in smallish print: PATTERN (network); MATTER (stuff); PROCESS (life activity).

The wording inside the triangle will be something close to "UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF LIVING SYSTEMS AND VIABLE HUMAN SOCIAL SYSTEMS."

That's it! Stark and simple. The mindblowing aspect of the triangle is that the operators are to engage life and consciously create living social systems in life's universal pattern of organization.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, This is a continuation of the first post that got cut off somehow when I accidentally hit a key and couldn't type further. I will be taking a computer course this winter.

Here is the tentative text to go underneath the triangle. Please add your suggestions. I'm looking for minimal text: brief but comprehensive.

First underlying statement. "Capra's triangle reductively splits life's universal, inseparable pattern of organization into three parts for comprehension and use.

2. The triangle's organization applies to viable forms of human community such as anarchism and communism.

3. The triangle's organization states all living systems are self-organized, integrated wholes existing in dynamic interdependence with their environment. A cell is the base living system.

4. The triangle shows all living systems are self-organized Matter network-Patterned with their Process (life activity; what they do; how they organize internally and integrate with their environment to make their living).

Then, below the text, perhaps something along the lines of: "CHECK THIS OUT! Are you finding this mindboggling? Everyone does. Just remember all living systems are self-organized matter network-patterned into the system with which they engage the environment and make their living. Isn't a termite a material system network-patterned into the termite form by which it makes its living? And wouldn't anarchist/communist organizations and communities consist of self-organizing Matter (people and their materials) network-Patterned with what they do--how they organize internally into the system with which they engage their world?"
CHECK THIS OUT! Isn't every living system self-organized Matter network-Patterned with its Process (life activity)? CHECK THIS OUT!"

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I got up this morning and resolved to knock out a full preliminary proposition for Triangle 1. Remember that we are working on this together and that all of my suggestions are just that: suggestions. As for attribution, Capra has supplied the triangle, I am supplying its interpretation, and you are the graphics artist and co-conspirator. Your signature with the graphics is appropriate.


Thanks, but you're still not understanding, MN -- there should be some kind of *formal* acknowledgement of what we're sourcing from, *and* our own identities, in whatever form.

Please don't be interpersonal-political on this, and instead think in terms of posterity -- who should be formally attributed for this, besides my own signature logo, if that -- ?





As for the actual model of Triangle 1, I am seeing that simple line drawing on a white background with its angles labeled in smallish print: PATTERN (network); MATTER (stuff); PROCESS (life activity).


Okay.





The wording inside the triangle will be something close to "UNIVERSAL PATTERN OF ORGANIZATION OF LIVING SYSTEMS AND VIABLE HUMAN SOCIAL SYSTEMS."


Yes -- got it, per your previous mentioning of it.





That's it! Stark and simple. The mindblowing aspect of the triangle is that the operators are to engage life and consciously create living social systems in life's universal pattern of organization.


Okay, give me a few here -- again, my schedule is fuller these days so I'm not going to be nearly as responsive as I'd like to be.





ckaihatsu, This is a continuation of the first post that got cut off somehow when I accidentally hit a key and couldn't type further. I will be taking a computer course this winter.

Here is the tentative text to go underneath the triangle. Please add your suggestions. I'm looking for minimal text: brief but comprehensive.

First underlying statement. "Capra's triangle reductively splits life's universal, inseparable pattern of organization into three parts for comprehension and use.

2. The triangle's organization applies to viable forms of human community such as anarchism and communism.

3. The triangle's organization states all living systems are self-organized, integrated wholes existing in dynamic interdependence with their environment. A cell is the base living system.

4. The triangle shows all living systems are self-organized Matter network-Patterned with their Process (life activity; what they do; how they organize internally and integrate with their environment to make their living).


'k.





Then, below the text, perhaps something along the lines of: "CHECK THIS OUT! Are you finding this mindboggling? Everyone does. Just remember all living systems are self-organized matter network-patterned into the system with which they engage the environment and make their living. Isn't a termite a material system network-patterned into the termite form by which it makes its living? And wouldn't anarchist/communist organizations and communities consist of self-organizing Matter (people and their materials) network-Patterned with what they do--how they organize internally into the system with which they engage their world?"
CHECK THIS OUT! Isn't every living system self-organized Matter network-Patterned with its Process (life activity)? CHECK THIS OUT!"

My red-green best.


Um, it may be a *disservice* to associate political organizing with the activity of *termites* -- insects.

I'll raise an objection here myself. You may want to consider re-wording this.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, The problems you are having (and everyone else will have) in relating termite organization to human organization is a barrier we will have to pass in some manner. The fact is, termites and all the other little bugs and the animals and all of their social systems are organized in the pattern by which humanity must consciously organize its communities.

There is an invalid human species exceptionalism and "conceit" that says we are different from the rest of life. This is only true in that our perception/consciousness of separate things blinds us to the living organization underlying life's things. For that matter, nothing is a thing. Everything is "organized," and the cosmos is a bootstrap of energized relations.

Human beings are natural beings living unnaturally who must learn nature's pattern of organization and apply it to our social systems.

So, we need to find ways to enable leftists to see underlying organizational relations. To do so would open the left's mind to revolutionary organizing.

As for attribution, I find it hard to engage it at the moment, for our immediate problem is agreeing on graphics and text and developing a "finished" Triangle 1, which would appropriately have a little signature from you. Personally, as all life is self-organizing and I see my role as bringing the triangle to others so they may employ it in their lives, I only care about personal attribution in the sense that it will enable those others to find and engage a major resource--me. Otherwise, I'm of the school that a good teacher or leader disappears.

Fishing was great yesterday and I'm in a rush to get in a last few casts before the first storm of the winter arrives. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, The problems you are having (and everyone else will have) in relating termite organization to human organization is a barrier we will have to pass in some manner. The fact is, termites and all the other little bugs and the animals and all of their social systems are organized in the pattern by which humanity must consciously organize its communities.

There is an invalid human species exceptionalism and "conceit" that says we are different from the rest of life. This is only true in that our perception/consciousness of separate things blinds us to the living organization underlying life's things. For that matter, nothing is a thing. Everything is "organized," and the cosmos is a bootstrap of energized relations.


MN, yes, I agree with you in general here and do not oppose this point / fact of yours.

That said, though, I'd like to mention that this graphic is meant for a general audience, and, like all good propaganda, should "reach them where they're at" and serve to "transition" them in the intended direction.

As a matter of style and 'digestability' -- if you will -- it may be preferable to approach the reader/viewer with a different nature-based analogy -- something other than termites, if at all possible. I hope this point is well-received and appreciated.





Human beings are natural beings living unnaturally who must learn nature's pattern of organization and apply it to our social systems.

So, we need to find ways to enable leftists to see underlying organizational relations. To do so would open the left's mind to revolutionary organizing.


Yes.

To that end, I'll argue, we should be promoting understandings and methodologies that don't merely *imitate* nature's patterns verbatim -- since that would be ambiguous anyway, given the instance of natural predation -- but should be *adapting* general, complexity-influenced understandings of how natural dynamics work to *inform* our own social abilities and revolutionary political impactfulness.





As for attribution, I find it hard to engage it at the moment, for our immediate problem is agreeing on graphics and text and developing a "finished" Triangle 1, which would appropriately have a little signature from you. Personally, as all life is self-organizing and I see my role as bringing the triangle to others so they may employ it in their lives, I only care about personal attribution in the sense that it will enable those others to find and engage a major resource--me. Otherwise, I'm of the school that a good teacher or leader disappears.


Okay -- if you have no objections I'm thinking along the lines of:

'Created by Mr. Natural, RevLeft.com. Graphic design by Chris Kaihatsu, [email protected], [date]. Original Capra's Triangle from Capra, [Book Title ('Web of Life' -- ?)], [book date, publishing info].' [signature logo omitted]

I thought you might have this kind of info handy, but it's no big deal -- I can certainly look it up and add it myself, for your okay.





Fishing was great yesterday and I'm in a rush to get in a last few casts before the first storm of the winter arrives. My red-green best.


Cool -- enjoy.

I'll be getting on this latest revision and should have something fairly soon. Later.

[ckaihatsu]

Here's the latest, line-art version.

I left off the 'Check this out' text block for reasons of wording and space -- nothing's set in stone, though.

Comments are welcome, take care.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, That's an excellent triangle graphic. Thanks much! I've been drawing one on my own, and let's sit on this for a couple of days. Progress is definitely being made, and I'm digesting this meal. I'm really looking forward to eventually posting our baby in a thread.

I came across a passage this morning that speaks to the discussions we are having re-difficulties of equating human and natural organization--termites and people. Here is David Harvey in his excellent Companion to Marx's Capital, writing of Marx's dialectical understanding of human/natural relations: "This dialectic, of perpetually transforming oneself by transforming the world and vice versa, is fundamental to understanding the evolution of human societies as well as the evolution of nature itself. But this process is not unique to human beings--ants do it, beavers do it, all kinds of organisms do it. The whole history of life on earth is rife with dialectical interactions of this kind."

This is so true, and you might say the entire "red-green project" entails getting comrades to see that matter has self-organized into living systems on Earth by employing a universal pattern of organization--modeled by Capra's triangle--that we must apply to human social systems. This pattern applies to individual termites and their colonies, and to human individuals and our social systems. Life on Earth has a universal pattern of organization by which matter forms living systems.

This is a deeply radical and revolutionary concept, and it's based in science that is scientifically verifiable! My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, That's an excellent triangle graphic. Thanks much!


Good, glad we found a combination that works for you.





I've been drawing one on my own, and let's sit on this for a couple of days. Progress is definitely being made, and I'm digesting this meal. I'm really looking forward to eventually posting our baby in a thread.


Um...yeah.

How about we lay off the biological metaphors, just for the interactions within the two-person organization here -- ? (I don't like what that last part implies.)

If you have no objections I'm also going to go ahead and develop the 'labels-based' version as well, in tandem. I'll use the same attribution as for this one. As with all of these incremental versions so far, I will not create a full-resolution image, and it will not be un-watermarked.





I came across a passage this morning that speaks to the discussions we are having re-difficulties of equating human and natural organization--termites and people. Here is David Harvey in his excellent Companion to Marx's Capital, writing of Marx's dialectical understanding of human/natural relations: "This dialectic, of perpetually transforming oneself by transforming the world and vice versa, is fundamental to understanding the evolution of human societies as well as the evolution of nature itself. But this process is not unique to human beings--ants do it, beavers do it, all kinds of organisms do it. The whole history of life on earth is rife with dialectical interactions of this kind."

This is so true, and you might say the entire "red-green project" entails getting comrades to see that matter has self-organized into living systems on Earth by employing a universal pattern of organization--modeled by Capra's triangle--that we must apply to human social systems. This pattern applies to individual termites and their colonies, and to human individuals and our social systems. Life on Earth has a universal pattern of organization by which matter forms living systems.

This is a deeply radical and revolutionary concept, and it's based in science that is scientifically verifiable! My red-green best.


Yes, MN, you've made your general point repeatedly, and it *is* based on empirical realities, but your habit of repetition would lead one to think that what you're espousing is more on the *ideological* side of things, rather than on the *scientific* side -- if you want to be clearer about what the *political* implications are from natural dynamics then you're going to have to be clearer about what *aspects* you're borrowing from nature, and why. (Again, we can't just mimic nature's entirety, because we do *supersede* natural dynamics in many, social / civilizational ways.)

Termites may actually not be a bad analogy to use, but it still remains vague for the purposes of propaganda and instruction -- what does the behavior of a termite colony *suggest* to you here regarding politics, and what meaning should it have for the reader/viewer -- ?

[ckaihatsu]

http://alphakx.deviantart.com/art/Primary-Data-Loop-89184399


Incidentally, I happened to come across a piece of graphic artwork that's very timely for this topic, at the link above.

Without intending to, it visually indicates the concept of complexity that's pertinent to both nature-based dynamics and human social-political dynamics as well.

I like that it shows a variety of locus points, at various locations in 3-dimensional space, with varying magnitudes. Each locus point radiates out onto a certain periphery, possibly on more than one dimension, and overlaps and interacts with those of others.

If there is a way to visually illustrate complexity theory and its potential application to (revolutionary) politics and political organizing, this is a very good place to start.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, here's an update on the 'Triangle with labels' version. None of the content has been altered. The type is relatively small but will look fine on the full-size, 3200x1600 version.

Feel free to comment.

[Strannik]

I have not posted here for a long time - first I fried my GPU and then also my hard drive and then I had forgotten my Revleft password. So there are several questions I need to answer, I believe. :)

In this short post I'd like to argue one point, however - that there is no difference between humans and other animals. Yes, there is a fundamental difference. Humans are only species that coordinates its real-world behaviour by creating and sustaining abstractions. This ability is what makes our social formations (for example, capitalism) possible in the first place. And while abstract models we create are not necessarily natural, our ability to create them is entirely natural. This means on the one hand that we cannot abandon this ability and on the other hand, that problems arrive only when we start to believe our abstractions are reality. Any abstraction, including Capra's triangle is open to this danger.

Regarding the quote from Harvey - not every two-sided interaction can be automatically described as "dialectical". Evolution, for example, is indeed a two-sided interaction between species and environment, but ignores all other characteristics of dialectic. Humanity's ideological progress, on the other hand, satisfies all of characteristics.

Sorry if I sound contrarian, but I believe that any criticism can be used to further elaborate one's ideas. ;)

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, Good to have you back. Every time I hear someone go into orgasms over the miracle of the internet and the communication and information it provides, I immediately think of how fragile the internet is and how it is in effect fully controlled and surveilled by The System.

I find you to be quite valuable, not contrarian. You took exception to what you took as my assertion that "there is no difference between humans and other animals." My position, though (and it is correct), is that there is no difference in the pattern of organization of animals and humans. Otherwise, there are some big differences.

All living systems have the same pattern of organizaton, and this organization is modeled by Capra's triangle. All living systems are self-organized material systems network-patterned with what they do (in their environment to make their living).

You moved on to make a very important point centered on human conscious abstraction. You wrote, "while the abstract models we create are not necessarily natural, our ability to create them is entirely natural."

Yes, indeed, humans create abstract models of the world and their projects before they engage the real world and make their living. Marx's passage on bees and archtitects applies here, for Marx notes the bee comes by its architecture automatically, while the architect must "erect his structure in his imagination before he constructs it in reality."

And as you note, Strannik, all human abstractions can go wrong, including Capra's triangle. In nature, animal deviations are taken care of naturally through evolution. Mutational developments opposed to life's pattern do not endure. But what of gross human deviations from natural organization such as capitalism? How do they arise and how might they be disappeared?

Well, all living systems have the same pattern of organization, and this is true for the human body and brain, which are living systems. However, the human brain became so complex through environmental engagement and labor that it in effect doubled back (reflected back) upon itself to become partially trapped within a species and human individual isolation. Maturana and Varela's theory of autopoiesis and the work they did on cognition that is covered in Capra's Web of Life reveals this remarkable phenomenon. I have tracked this down further by reading Maturana and Varela's Tree of Knowlege (1987) and John Minger's Self-Producing Systems (1995), which exhaustively critiques the theory of autopoiesis and its implications for consciousness. Autopoiesis (self-making) and self-organization are almost identical concepts arrived at in different fields by different people a year apart.

Human consciousness is a partial consciousness that not only leaves us with an unbalanced favoring of our species and individual selves and their histories over the rest of life, but it is a perception/consciousness of things that misses the critical underlying organization of those things. I've written this before: we who must intelligently organize our lives in life's pattern cannot see and do not know life's organizational pattern.

So something like Capra's triangle is essential if the human species is to continue. We must learn to see life's organization and employ it in our lives. The communist revolution must be a transcendent human revolution--a renaissance in which the human species realizes its nature and becomes life that is not only conscious of things, but of their organization. I believe it is our human potential to do this, but time is growing short. That evil abstraction from life, capitalism, is cashing us all in.

I don't have any problem with evolutionary dialectics. We need to consult Bertell Ollman here, who shows how Marx engaged Hegel and came away with a deeply ingrained understanding of life and society as organic, systemic processes, as are evolution and the emergence of ideology. I was thunderstruck as I read Ollman for the first time several years ago to see how closely the materialist dialectic expresses real, living processes and relations. But the materialist dialectic lacks the crucial organization that the triangle provides.

Did I explain anything, or just add confusion? My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, This will be continued tomorrow. It's late and I need to break off before I have a mental meltdown. I'm going to take the graphics and think them over on my late afternoon hike and get back to you tomorrow on them.

On termites, they are naturally organized in the pattern by which people must organize, and they make it "easy" to watch this organization. An individual termite is akin to a cell, and termite "cells" self-organize into the emergent organization of the colony. Human individuals are "cells," too, that self-organize into emergent, "higher" levels of organization.

And termites "speak" with each other via pheromones to self-organize into a functional colony. Neither termite individuals nor human individuals can survive without self-organizing into "higher" forms of community, and termites teach this lesson well.

Okay, I'll abort our thread baby. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, This will be continued tomorrow. It's late and I need to break off before I have a mental meltdown. I'm going to take the graphics and think them over on my late afternoon hike and get back to you tomorrow on them.


Yeah -- there's never any rush or pressure with any of this, of course. That's the upside of a fully voluntary cooperation for the sake of adding to the public domain.





On termites, they are naturally organized in the pattern by which people must organize, and they make it "easy" to watch this organization. An individual termite is akin to a cell, and termite "cells" self-organize into the emergent organization of the colony. Human individuals are "cells," too, that self-organize into emergent, "higher" levels of organization.

And termites "speak" with each other via pheromones to self-organize into a functional colony. Neither termite individuals nor human individuals can survive without self-organizing into "higher" forms of community, and termites teach this lesson well.


Yes, I fully understand all of this -- I can only repeat myself and suggest a rewording of the text for this part.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I've been looking at where we are this morning with a fresh mind and really like what I see. That line drawing is cool. We'll need to do some further adjusting, but the basic idea and form is there.

On the attribution: How about "Project conceived by Mr. Natural, RevLeft.com. Graphic design by .... [this ok]. Capra's triangle is the creation of the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra, and is originally presented in his Web of Life (1996), Anchor Books published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, New York."

Then, (I don't know if this is significant), I always think of the three elements of the triangle as "pattern-matter-process," while you have this "matter-pattern-process." Now as I think of it, your version might be better, for people always start with the stuff. I've thought in terms of pattern-matter-process for 13 years, but I can change. This old dog can still bark new tunes.

I also like the way you placed our major statements around the triangle, and not just below. Your version is livelier.

I'm not sure about that circle, though. Do we need it in Triangle 1? And it becomes an internal circle in Triangle 2. I'm seeing it right now as surplus for Triangle 1.

As for the reference to anarchist/communist social systems needing to be organized in the triangle's pattern, here is my most recent version: "The triangle's organization is that of viable forms of human community such as anarchism and communism." Then I add the following under the preceding statement: "The triangle says: all living systems are self-organizing Matter network-Patterned with its Process (life activity)."

On a sidenote, you referred to "natural predation" in the sense that it is different from human relations. But it isn't: natural "predation" is simply life's dynamic interdependence,its pervasive, communal relations. Nature is just "communicating" and keeping itself going through the process by which its living systems engage each other to generate the energy and relations necessary to their being and the continuation of the life process. So Tennyson's "Nature, red in tooth and claw," is our conscious, anthropocentric apprehension of nature's relations, but Mother Nature is just doing her dynamically interdependent thing. It seems cold, but Mother Nature doesn't give a shit about "suffering"--she's maintaining communication and organizational relations.

We humans, though, with our self-reflective consciousness are aware of and care a whole lot about our suffering, and anarchist/communist forms of community are to create non-suffering human relations. We will learn to organize, communicate, and otherwise relate in painless ways. The human animal will become the human being.

But we will still all eventually die. Damn! Mother Nature can indeed be a mean mutha.

My red-green, eventually doomed best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I've been looking at where we are this morning with a fresh mind and really like what I see. That line drawing is cool. We'll need to do some further adjusting, but the basic idea and form is there.


Okay, yeah, that's the point. Since there's no set time limit we can do revisions until we arrive at a finalization.





On the attribution: How about "Project conceived by Mr. Natural, RevLeft.com. Graphic design by .... [this ok]. Capra's triangle is the creation of the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra, and is originally presented in his Web of Life (1996), Anchor Books published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, New York."


I'm fine with this, except for the 'Graphic design' part, since it wouldn't be accurate -- I'll stay with 'Graphic production' since I basically executed according to the artistic direction you provided.





Then, (I don't know if this is significant), I always think of the three elements of the triangle as "pattern-matter-process," while you have this "matter-pattern-process." Now as I think of it, your version might be better, for people always start with the stuff. I've thought in terms of pattern-matter-process for 13 years, but I can change. This old dog can still bark new tunes.


Okay -- it's actually tangential to the graphic itself, anyway, since it only appears in the filename, and that's only for revisions and not the final version.





I also like the way you placed our major statements around the triangle, and not just below. Your version is livelier.


Yeah, I just wanted to make sure to fit all of the text blocks, without occluding the graphic parts -- I fit the text where I could.





I'm not sure about that circle, though. Do we need it in Triangle 1? And it becomes an internal circle in Triangle 2. I'm seeing it right now as surplus for Triangle 1.


My aesthetic judgment on this is that while the circle element is not *strictly* required, it does reinforce the circular shape indicated by the three curved-text elements, and also adds to the 'graphic-ness' of the overall design.

In combination with the triangle I think it forms more of a symbol-looking shape, creating visual interest.

I would carry out your direction here, regardless, but with a formal reservation against removing the circle.





As for the reference to anarchist/communist social systems needing to be organized in the triangle's pattern, here is my most recent version: "The triangle's organization is that of viable forms of human community such as anarchism and communism." Then I add the following under the preceding statement: "The triangle says: all living systems are self-organizing Matter network-Patterned with its Process (life activity)."


Okay. Will do.





On a sidenote, you referred to "natural predation" in the sense that it is different from human relations. But it isn't: natural "predation" is simply life's dynamic interdependence,its pervasive, communal relations. Nature is just "communicating" and keeping itself going through the process by which its living systems engage each other to generate the energy and relations necessary to their being and the continuation of the life process. So Tennyson's "Nature, red in tooth and claw," is our conscious, anthropocentric apprehension of nature's relations, but Mother Nature is just doing her dynamically interdependent thing. It seems cold, but Mother Nature doesn't give a shit about "suffering"--she's maintaining communication and organizational relations.


MN, I have to point out that you're trying to have it both ways here -- you're effectively holding *contradictory* positions.

If you distance humanity and human value judgments from nature's self-emergent realm then you can't, at the same time, *laud* it as being a paragon of organization for us to adopt wholesale.

Obversely, if you insist that nature is an exemplar for us then you're invoking a human-based, anthropocentric perspective and can't, at the same time, *detach* humanity from this very act.

To put it dialectically, the synthesis is found in an action of abstraction into a *generalization* of the two, into *complexity theory* -- this is why I mentioned it in a recent post.





We humans, though, with our self-reflective consciousness are aware of and care a whole lot about our suffering, and anarchist/communist forms of community are to create non-suffering human relations. We will learn to organize, communicate, and otherwise relate in painless ways. The human animal will become the human being.

But we will still all eventually die. Damn! Mother Nature can indeed be a mean mutha.

My red-green, eventually doomed best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'm going to be away until Friday. I'm not "having it both ways," re-natural organization and human perception/consciousness. I am expressing my awareness that human perception cannot see natural organization and misinterprets those relations. Thus we "see" "nature red in tooth and claw" while nature is just communicating and maintaining its organizational relations.

You don't like that passage for the same reason others would dislike it: it points to a partial human perception/consciousness that gloms onto life's things but misses their organization. This partial consciousness is about to kill the human species. We cannot continue if we do not organize and live in the pattern of life, and to do so we must learn to see organization.

I have repeatedly referred to a paradigm shift in consciousness the human species must achieve. We must learn to see and employ life's organization in our lives, and Capra's triangle makes this possible.

I have yet to find a comrade who will even admit he/she sees stuff but is blind to its organization.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'm going to be away until Friday. I'm not "having it both ways," re-natural organization and human perception/consciousness.




I am expressing my awareness that human perception cannot see natural organization and misinterprets those relations. Thus we "see" "nature red in tooth and claw" while nature is just communicating and maintaining its organizational relations.


I'm just repeating myself here -- obviously we disagree -- but for the sake of argument, here it is again:

You're stating that a certain value judgment exists that originates from *human* thought. This value judgment, which you also happen to subscribe to, posits that nature is "just doing its thing", to paraphrase, and that there is no need to anthropocentrize this empirical natural reality by *critiquing* certain aspects of the natural world -- predation, for example.

But your contention *is* a position, or human-based value judgment -- that nature is 'neutral' in a sense, and that it would be misguided for us to use our critical minds to reach any conclusions *other* than that it's 'neutral'.

So this is a contradiction -- either we are to use our human faculties, to conclude that the natural world "just is", or else, if not, we would effectively have to *ignore* nature and *not* use any judgments whatsoever. Your conclusion that nature is 'neutral' requires a human value judgment, by its very action.

(You also go *further* than this, of course, to argue that we should not only see nature as 'neutral', but even as a pre-made structure of organization that we would do well to emulate. This is a *second* paired contradiction, of its own, since if natural phenomena are to be seen as 'neutral', then they cannot *also* be seen as a *positive* for us to be instructed by.)





You don't like that passage for the same reason others would dislike it: it points to a partial human perception/consciousness that gloms onto life's things but misses their organization. This partial consciousness is about to kill the human species. We cannot continue if we do not organize and live in the pattern of life, and to do so we must learn to see organization.

I have repeatedly referred to a paradigm shift in consciousness the human species must achieve. We must learn to see and employ life's organization in our lives, and Capra's triangle makes this possible.

I have yet to find a comrade who will even admit he/she sees stuff but is blind to its organization.

My red-green best.

[Strannik]

I find you to be quite valuable, not contrarian. You took exception to what you took as my assertion that "there is no difference between humans and other animals." My position, though (and it is correct), is that there is no difference in the pattern of organization of animals and humans. Otherwise, there are some big differences.

All living systems have the same pattern of organizaton, and this organization is modeled by Capra's triangle. All living systems are self-organized material systems network-patterned with what they do (in their environment to make their living).

You moved on to make a very important point centered on human conscious abstraction. You wrote, "while the abstract models we create are not necessarily natural, our ability to create them is entirely natural."

Yes, indeed, humans create abstract models of the world and their projects before they engage the real world and make their living. Marx's passage on bees and archtitects applies here, for Marx notes the bee comes by its architecture automatically, while the architect must "erect his structure in his imagination before he constructs it in reality."

And as you note, Strannik, all human abstractions can go wrong, including Capra's triangle. In nature, animal deviations are taken care of naturally through evolution. Mutational developments opposed to life's pattern do not endure. But what of gross human deviations from natural organization such as capitalism? How do they arise and how might they be disappeared?

Well, all living systems have the same pattern of organization, and this is true for the human body and brain, which are living systems. However, the human brain became so complex through environmental engagement and labor that it in effect doubled back (reflected back) upon itself to become partially trapped within a species and human individual isolation. Maturana and Varela's theory of autopoiesis and the work they did on cognition that is covered in Capra's Web of Life reveals this remarkable phenomenon. I have tracked this down further by reading Maturana and Varela's Tree of Knowlege (1987) and John Minger's Self-Producing Systems (1995), which exhaustively critiques the theory of autopoiesis and its implications for consciousness. Autopoiesis (self-making) and self-organization are almost identical concepts arrived at in different fields by different people a year apart.

Human consciousness is a partial consciousness that not only leaves us with an unbalanced favoring of our species and individual selves and their histories over the rest of life, but it is a perception/consciousness of things that misses the critical underlying organization of those things. I've written this before: we who must intelligently organize our lives in life's pattern cannot see and do not know life's organizational pattern.

So something like Capra's triangle is essential if the human species is to continue. We must learn to see life's organization and employ it in our lives. The communist revolution must be a transcendent human revolution--a renaissance in which the human species realizes its nature and becomes life that is not only conscious of things, but of their organization. I believe it is our human potential to do this, but time is growing short. That evil abstraction from life, capitalism, is cashing us all in.

I don't have any problem with evolutionary dialectics. We need to consult Bertell Ollman here, who shows how Marx engaged Hegel and came away with a deeply ingrained understanding of life and society as organic, systemic processes, as are evolution and the emergence of ideology. I was thunderstruck as I read Ollman for the first time several years ago to see how closely the materialist dialectic expresses real, living processes and relations. But the materialist dialectic lacks the crucial organization that the triangle provides.

Did I explain anything, or just add confusion? My red-green best.

Actually, I find it's a very good answer. I guess we are seeing the same kind of world, but we are seeing it a bit differently. What you call "partial consciousness" (an actual property of material human mind?) I would call a process of "self-sustaining" or "self-referential abstraction" - a socially conditioned method of thinking that has lost connection with actual world (and end of bourgeois era is not the first time this kind of thinking becomes prevalent).

My problem with "dialectics of nature" is for example that there are considerable differences between our understanding of evolution and theory of historical materialism. Evolution does not have revolutions - at least that's what biologists are saying. Human culture proceeds from one revolution to another. The concept of "progress" does not have any meaning in the context of evolution, but I find it very much meaningful in the context of human history.

Perhaps Ollmann has good arguments for his viewpoint, I guess I have to read his book next.

[Strannik]

I'm just repeating myself here -- obviously we disagree -- but for the sake of argument, here it is again:

You're stating that a certain value judgment exists that originates from *human* thought. This value judgment, which you also happen to subscribe to, posits that nature is "just doing its thing", to paraphrase, and that there is no need to anthropocentrize this empirical natural reality by *critiquing* certain aspects of the natural world -- predation, for example.

But your contention *is* a position, or human-based value judgment -- that nature is 'neutral' in a sense, and that it would be misguided for us to use our critical minds to reach any conclusions *other* than that it's 'neutral'.

So this is a contradiction -- either we are to use our human faculties, to conclude that the natural world "just is", or else, if not, we would effectively have to *ignore* nature and *not* use any judgments whatsoever. Your conclusion that nature is 'neutral' requires a human value judgment, by its very action.

(You also go *further* than this, of course, to argue that we should not only see nature as 'neutral', but even as a pre-made structure of organization that we would do well to emulate. This is a *second* paired contradiction, of its own, since if natural phenomena are to be seen as 'neutral', then they cannot *also* be seen as a *positive* for us to be instructed by.)

Perhaps I misunderstand, but Mr. Natural's "neutrality" seems to refer to general pattern of life, while you are talking about it's process. To say "we thinking, talking human beings should emulate natural form of organization for our societies" is not the same as "we human beings should emulate lion prides for our societies". The difference is that we have a significantly more and different tools on our disposal compared to lions and we do not have to emulate their process of living. In other words we can value pattern of nature as positive while very much arguing the fact that we should live like lions.

[ckaihatsu]

Perhaps I misunderstand, but Mr. Natural's "neutrality" seems to refer to general pattern of life, while you are talking about it's process.


No, I'm sorry, Strannik, but his summation, and my critique of it, correspond to the *entirety* of the natural world -- matter, pattern, and process. (Would we leave ourselves to wholly *genetic*-driven purposes, for example.)





To say "we thinking, talking human beings should emulate natural form of organization for our societies" is not the same as "we human beings should emulate lion prides for our societies". The difference is that we have a significantly more and different tools on our disposal compared to lions and we do not have to emulate their process of living. In other words we can value pattern of nature as positive while very much arguing the fact that we should live like lions.


I happen to *agree* with you here on this point, but Mr. Natural has not even *deigned* to address this boundary between nature and human society. Instead he relies on a rote repetition of an axiomatic line that increasingly resembles religiosity.

Certainly we *should* use our critical minds in an active way to wrestle with nature's influences on our societies and their present-day shaping. It would be folly to think that we can just mimic nature's organization in its totality.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, Thanks for your radical, conscientious engagement and spirit. You are quite correct in that I am looking at life's universal pattern of organization--the pattern by which matter self-organizes into living systems on Earth.

ckaihatsu, you are still missing that critical underlying organization: the universal organization underlying the many things of life. I am definitely not saying we should organize into termite colonies. I am saying we must self-organize into human forms of community by employing the same pattern of organization termites employ to self-organize into termite forms of community.

So it appears, Strannik, you are looking at and for the underlying organization of life's things, and if so, you might be on the verge of a deeply radical, personal, revolutionary breakthrough. I encourage you to pick Ollman up. It is absolutely uncanny how closely the materialist dialectic as understood by Marx resembles living relations, and Ollman appears to be the only source for this. I believe I am quite correct in writing that these dialectical relations served to bring nature and society to life in Marx's mind as the organic, systemic processes that they certainly are, and Marxism was the result.

Evolution is also an organic, systemic process, and evolution does, indeed, "go to revolution" all the time. I am hoping you will further engage our disagreement on "evolution naturally goes to revolution" and through it come to even better see that life's organization indeed needs to become our underlying human organization.

On the matter of evolution as revolution, evolution includes the revolutionary processes of punctuated equilibrium (what could be more revolutionary than the Cambrian explosion?), emergence, bifurcation points, and phase transitions. This surely is a partial list. And now that I think of it, what could be more revolutionary than the emergence of life on Earth?

Let's see if I can further unpack the relations that generate what I refer to as humanity's "partial consciousness." This phenomenon is based in the universal pattern of the self-organization of matter into living systems on Earth--it couldn't be otherwise!-- and is revealed by the radical, revolutionary, scientific phenomenon of self-organization/autopoiesis.

I believe we agree that humans see things and are blind to their critical underlying organizational relations. This in itself constitutes a "partial consciousness," doesn't it? But the self-organization of our exceedingly complex brains becomes even more "partial" and even more significantly split from the rest of life, for it self-reflects--doubles back on itself--into an imbalanced rooting in and emphasis on species and individual history. Our brains thus often misinterpret environmental relations by filtering them through our species characteristics and individual histories. We become species chauvinist in opposition to the rest of life, and as individuals, we misinterpret relations external to our individual selves by "seeing" them through our personal experience. In the latter instance, for example, women will tend to "see" men in general according to their life experiences with men, and Barack Obama's black skin leads people to very different "opinions" of him.

This self-reflective "doubling back" into an imprisonment of sorts within our own species and individual histories is conclusively demonstrated by Maturana and Varela and autopoiesis, and is solely a product of the self-organization of matter to life on Earth.

Strannik, everything I post has to do with engaging the self-organization of matter into living, communal systems on Earth and bringing this organization into our minds and lives so we may develop revolutionary processes out of capitalism into realized forms of human being. Therefore I'm really appreciating the open, critical mind you bring to this thread.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, you are still missing that critical underlying organization: the universal organization underlying the many things of life.


MN, I'm not missing *shit* -- blithe, blanket assertions on your part do not necessarily fly just because you're uttering them.





I am definitely not saying we should organize into termite colonies. I am saying we must self-organize into human forms of community by employing the same pattern of organization termites employ to self-organize into termite forms of community.


This is more hyperbole -- a vague, general assertion is just that: a contention.

You should be looking to further *describe* exactly what aspects of 'the same pattern of organization [termites] employ to self-organize', at this point in the discussion. ('Termites' may be replaced with any other given social organism organization.)

You're teetering on the edge of sheer ideology, away from science, if you can't relate these principles of natural dynamics to the social-political realm.

While your recounting of the systematics of natural dynamics is much-needed and appreciated here, I, for one, would welcome a *more comprehensive* application of these emergent dynamics to the *political* sphere -- how is Marxism *congruent* with "the universal organization underlying the many things of life" -- ?





On the matter of evolution as revolution, evolution includes the revolutionary processes of punctuated equilibrium (what could be more revolutionary than the Cambrian explosion?), emergence, bifurcation points, and phase transitions. This surely is a partial list. And now that I think of it, what could be more revolutionary than the emergence of life on Earth?

Let's see if I can further unpack the relations that generate what I refer to as humanity's "partial consciousness." This phenomenon is based in the universal pattern of the self-organization of matter into living systems on Earth--it couldn't be otherwise!-- and is revealed by the radical, revolutionary, scientific phenomenon of self-organization/autopoiesis.

I believe we agree that humans see things and are blind to their critical underlying organizational relations. This in itself constitutes a "partial consciousness," doesn't it? But the self-organization of our exceedingly complex brains becomes even more "partial" and even more significantly split from the rest of life, for it self-reflects--doubles back on itself--into an imbalanced rooting in and emphasis on species and individual history. Our brains thus often misinterpret environmental relations by filtering them through our species characteristics and individual histories. We become species chauvinist in opposition to the rest of life, and as individuals, we misinterpret relations external to our individual selves by "seeing" them through our personal experience. In the latter instance, for example, women will tend to "see" men in general according to their life experiences with men, and Barack Obama's black skin leads people to very different "opinions" of him.

This self-reflective "doubling back" into an imprisonment of sorts within our own species and individual histories is conclusively demonstrated by Maturana and Varela and autopoiesis, and is solely a product of the self-organization of matter to life on Earth.

Strannik, everything I post has to do with engaging the self-organization of matter into living, communal systems on Earth and bringing this organization into our minds and lives so we may develop revolutionary processes out of capitalism into realized forms of human being. Therefore I'm really appreciating the open, critical mind you bring to this thread.

My red-green best.

[Strannik]

Well, here's how I understand Mr. N' point of view by now. I try to compress it as much as I can (perhaps not everything needs to be said, but as always I describe my current personal understanding here).

Basically, all marxists believe that there is an objective material world outside of our minds. Also, there is the world of abstractions in human minds - what we believe and think and speak about this world.

The world of abstractions does in no way determine the objective material world. Even the most fanatical ideologue has in the end bow to actual material conditions. Conversely, objective reality is constantly eliminating humans and groups who hold abstract beliefs that diverge too far from objective conditions. This happened for example with monarchist feudals in France, it has happened with various cults and utopian communes and is happening now with modern financial bourgeoise. They all have chosen to ignore objective reality for neat, cozy (for them) abstract social models. So, in that sense material infrastructure determines the (surviving) abstract beliefs.

If we want to establish a movement capable of surviving and even overthrowing current ways of the world, our abstractions have to be congruent with objective material conditions.

Now, Mr. Natural want's to add to this consciousness-determing infrastructure another characteristic, which is not material, but nevertheless objectively real. It's the pattern of organization of living systems: basically a non-hierarchic network of similar units tied with concrete relationships.

Pattern of organization is not material. No matter how you arrange the component parts in an electonic system, its mass remains the same. So there are no material changes. Nevertheless, one arrangement works and others do not. So pattern of arrangement can indeed be an objective characteristic of material systems. Basically Mr Natural is saying that there is an additional determining characteristic to viable abstract systems besides material conditions (or, rather, that pattern of organization *is* another material condition in the philosophical sense of the word).

As far as I understand, all great marxists and revolutionaries until now have believed that pattern of organization is an abstraction and as such should be determined by material conditions. Different material conditions require different patterns of organization. Fighting a war requires strong central management and chain of command. Developing a fertile cultural and economic environment requires democratic network of councils of working people. Proletarian state should recognize that there are no universally "good" and "evil" organizational structures, there are correct and incorrect models for a given material situation.

Mr. Natural, however, adds an universal criterion that can be used to eliminate some organizational models as viable and he says that this criterion, while not material, is nevertheless inseparably part of material infrastructure which should determine all our abstractions. It's a natural law.

It seems to me that in practice, for human systems, this would mean - commitment to worker's councils-based structure and lack of central authoritarian management is not just a generally good idea or positive goal but essential characteristic of materialist social systems. Whenever we abandon it, we are essentially abandoning philosophical materialism and becoming idealist. For example, When Soviet Union reacted to its objective political situation with centralization of state power and top-down militarization of economy, its leaders believed that they are reacting to objective material conditons. I'd say that from Mr. N's point of view they fell into idealism, because they abandoned the (in philosophical sense) material condition of organizational pattern and replaced it with an idealist pattern of hierarchy. Soviet government no longer served actual material workers but an idealist abstraction of proletariat.

On the other hand, this outlook leaves open the process of life. There is no universally correct "Way of Life". Each organism has developed its own mode and tools of survival according to material conditions. Killer whales have teeth and are hydrodynamic. Humans have abstract thought and language to share it with each other. It is our tool of survival that allows us to criticize and eventually overcome human condition.

I don't know wheter I subscribe to Mr. Natural's point of view. As far I know, because of it's organizational structure, Life never commits all its resources to anything, it adapts through trial and error. Can this really be viable organizational structure for humans who possess nuclear power? Also Life's "goal" is to survive, not progress. However, it seems to me that Mr. Natural's outlook is not indefensible from materialist point of view.

In the end, marxists have to keep in mind that criterion of truth is the practice. Spontaneous socialist revolutions have indeed adopted the "network of councils" structure. If this is the viable materialist mode of organization, socialist movement will adopt it whether or not Mr. Natural can defend his positions on this board.

I'll reserve my opinion on "evolution as revolution" until I have read Ollman.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Yes, you are indeed missing the universal pattern of matter's self-organization into living systems on Earth. And this pattern comes from science, not hyperbole. Just try to find me a living system that is not self-organizing matter network-patterned with its life activity.

I have found there are two main reasons people cannot "see" what I'm trying to present. The first has to do with humanity's reductive, conservative consciousness, and is universal. The second, though, has to do with individual resistances to new ideas and varies more from person to person. We are all living systems and so are our brains, and each kind of living systems has specific forms of organization that emerge from the universal pattern of organization. These living systems are highly resistant to new relations, and brains/mental systems do not readily admit new ideas. Living systems must retain a dynamic balance with the rest of life, and can not and do not change willy-nilly.

So it is natural for living systems to resist change, but change is also intrinsic to life and in my honest, well-considered opinion, you are permitting yourself too much resistance to engaging the deep organizational, material relations the triangle reveals. Capra's triangle is not superficial but deep, as are the living relations the materialist dialectic embraces.

On the triangle, I am cultivating the habit of now referring to its relations as "Matter/Pattern/Process," as you suggested, as I think this might best access the regular person.

I still don't see a need for a circle in Triangle 1. I believe the simple but universal pattern of organization of life needs to be as simply modeled as possible. I am again thinking of Gell-Mann's "surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity." The universal pattern of organization of life is deep and simple. Both concepts--organizational depth and simplicity-- are difficult for human perception/consciousness to grasp.

On Triangle 2, which employs a circle representing a living system that is enclosed by the triangle's pattern of organization, I'm seeing a simple labeling along the lines of: "A LIVING SYSTEM'S ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONS."

I then see two statements below the triangle. The first explains the model, and would say something along the lines of: This model shows lower-level components self-organizing into a living system (circle) according to life's universal pattern of organization (triangle). In a living system, components make the whole and the whole makes the components (here we need a double arrow), and a living system is dynamically interdependent with its environment of other living systems and physical forces (another double arrow)."

Then comes a statement describing the process of designing living social systems with the triangle. It would read something like: "Triangle operators, individually or in groups (best), are to engage their situation with "triangle vision" to design (self-organize) a project that will "come alive." The project designed in the pattern of life will be self-organized matter (people and materials) network-patterned with its life activity (what it does; in human terms, its meaning and purpose)."

People create various forms of community all the time, albeit without an awareness of the underlying organizational relations. Thus I have a long and continuing difficulty seeing just why people find it near-impossible to perceive organizational relations, but the problem is very real.

In the meantime, capitalism is rapidly cashing us in. My very red, very green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, Thanks again for the deep engagement. Let's see if I can do your post justice.

You wrote, "pattern of organization is another material condition in the philosophical sense of the word." Yes, my sketchy knowledge of quantum theory and cosmology tells me that energized patterns underly all materiality--that matter emerges from dynamic pattern. So you are radically correct: pattern and matter are inseparable. You cannot have stuff without organization.

You wrote that there are correct and incorrect models for a given situation and you are again correct. Living systems must engage life in its pattern of organization, and evolution takes care of most violaters of life's "laws." But what are we going to do about the human Frankenstein monster--the malignant capitalist system that has metastasized life on Earth?

Answer: learn to employ Capra's triangle to organize anarchist and communist forms of community and revolutionary processes out of capitalism.

You are also radically correct in your assessment that grassrooted, bottom-up organization is the "essential characteristic of materialist social systems." If not bottom up, such social systems will lose contact with their people-roots.

And I just loved your reference to the Soviet Union: "When the SU reacted to its objective political situation with centralization of state power and top-down militariazation of economy ... I'd say from Mr. N's point of view they fell into idealism, because they abandoned (in philosophical sense) the material conditions of organizational pattern and replaced it with an idealist pattern of hierarchy." I hadn't thought of the SU's abandonment of soviets, etc., as "idealist," but the term fits and reveals. Yes, the fSU idealistically abstracted its human relations from their material, communal roots.

You also correctly oberved re-universal pattern of organization: "This outlook leaves open the process of life .... Each organism has developed its own mode and tools of survival according to material conditions." Yes, the actual life activites of termites and humans are quite different, but they both emerge from life's universal pattern of organization. The termite accomplishes this naturally and automatically, though, while humans must consciously design their living arrangements in the pattern of life.

Finally, I'm looking forward to your continuing engagement with "evolution as revolution." This comes from the new sciences and The Web of Life, by the way, and not Ollman. What Ollman brought so dramatically to my mind is that the Marxism and materialist dialectic of Marx and Engels so closely reflect real living, natural organizational relations. Thus it is really, really depressing to run into the prevailing conservatism of the left on a daily basis, and you are providing gusts of radically fresh air.

I'm looking forward to you really seeing that human beings are self-organizing material systems as is the rest of life, and that we must learn to live naturally. Anarchism and communism are natural forms of being, and the transcendent, unprecedented mental tool that is Capra's triangle can enable us all to learn to live naturally and well and have a human future.

I find it very easy to defend "the red-green theory and its triangle," but it is proving beyond difficult to enable others to see my explanations and the organization of life and communism.

So your open but critical mind is much appreciated, Strannik. I'm learning from your difficulties and successes in engaging the triangle. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Yes, you are indeed missing the universal pattern of matter's self-organization into living systems on Earth.


Hey, that's great and everything, MN, but with this -- as with your application of natural systems to Marxism -- you're not even attempting to say 'why' or 'how'.

Again, *anyone* can make blithe characterizations -- the part that makes it scientific and useful to others is when supporting reasoning is provided as well so that anyone else can verify those conclusions for themselves.





And this pattern comes from science, not hyperbole. Just try to find me a living system that is not self-organizing matter network-patterned with its life activity.


No disagreement on the fundamentals of what you're contributing -- that's why I'm here.





I have found there are two main reasons people cannot "see" what I'm trying to present. The first has to do with humanity's reductive, conservative consciousness, and is universal. The second, though, has to do with individual resistances to new ideas and varies more from person to person. We are all living systems and so are our brains, and each kind of living systems has specific forms of organization that emerge from the universal pattern of organization. These living systems are highly resistant to new relations, and brains/mental systems do not readily admit new ideas. Living systems must retain a dynamic balance with the rest of life, and can not and do not change willy-nilly.

So it is natural for living systems to resist change, but change is also intrinsic to life


Sure.





and in my honest, well-considered opinion, you are permitting yourself too much resistance to engaging the deep organizational, material relations the triangle reveals.


Well, *no*, I'm actually on the record here as being in agreement with the fundamentals of what you're describing for nature.

It's the 'deep organizational, material relations' part that *you* need to detail for the human social-political world, for your statement and characterization of my person to possibly make any sense.

(Otherwise you're deriving the judgment from the context of *nature*'s organizational relations, and that's not the world that *people* live in. It wouldn't be appropriate to judge me or anyone else according to a *nature-based* standard.)





Capra's triangle is not superficial but deep, as are the living relations the materialist dialectic embraces.


What you're doing here, MN, is, instead of using natural dynamics to inform an approach to revolutionary political organization, you're giving *lip-service* to Marxism and its concepts, sprinkling them around your repeated touting of the abstract triangle itself, in the context of the *natural* world.

I'll take up the rest of your post, for the graphic image project, when I next return my attentions to it.

[ckaihatsu]

This is the crux of it here:





I don't know wheter I subscribe to Mr. Natural's point of view. As far I know, because of it's organizational structure, Life never commits all its resources to anything, it adapts through trial and error. Can this really be viable organizational structure for humans who possess nuclear power? Also Life's "goal" is to survive, not progress. However, it seems to me that Mr. Natural's outlook is not indefensible from materialist point of view.

In the end, marxists have to keep in mind that criterion of truth is the practice. Spontaneous socialist revolutions have indeed adopted the "network of councils" structure. If this is the viable materialist mode of organization, socialist movement will adopt it whether or not Mr. Natural can defend his positions on this board.


I *also* would welcome MN delineating an approach that addresses these issues of trial-and-error vs. conscious organization, and survival-and-reproduction vs. social progress.

[Strannik]

To make the matter even more confusing, complex organisms have usually several specialized cellular systems. Each of them is indeed a network of cells, but what about relationship between them? For example vegetative nervous system sets the operational parameters for all other organs. In human organisms, higher brain functions can override even basic survival instinct of the entire organism. Isn't this a naturally evolving hierarchic relationship? And if so, it would mean that the process is actually determining the structure.

[ckaihatsu]

To make the matter even more confusing, complex organisms have usually several specialized cellular systems. Each of them is indeed a network of cells, but what about relationship between them? For example vegetative nervous system sets the operational parameters for all other organs. In human organisms, higher brain functions can override even basic survival instinct of the entire organism. Isn't this a naturally evolving hierarchic relationship? And if so, it would mean that the process is actually determining the structure.


Technically speaking there is no vegetative nervous system because plants don't have a specialized cellular system for electrochemical nerve impulses as animals do. Fringe claims, though, have been made concerning plants' ability to message internally, and even externally -- here's something I came across recently:





http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf063/sf063b11.htm


Trees talk in w-waves

We quote below from as Associated Press dispatch:

"Grants Pass, Ore. (AP) - Physicist Ed Wagner says he has found evidence that trees talk to each other in a language he calls W-waves.

"If you chop into a tree, you can see that adjacent trees put out an electrical pulse," said Wagner. "This indicates that they communicated directly."

"Explaining the phenomenon, Wagner pointed to a blip on a strip chart recording of the electrical pulse.

"It put out a tremendous cry of alarm," he said. "The adjacent trees put out smaller ones." .....

[...]





In human organisms, higher brain functions can override even basic survival instinct of the entire organism. Isn't this a naturally evolving hierarchic relationship? And if so, it would mean that the process is actually determining the structure.


You mention the resolution of the complexity / confusion here: hierarchy. In our social systems, in history, we know that hierarchy is not the *only* method of social organization.

You're pointing out that the millennia of trial-and-error through genetic evolution (natural selection) has given rise to the *hierarchical* structure of decision-overriding, or biological determinism.

What remains to be resolved is how to socially and politically organize *ourselves* on a global basis, since we're effectively at the top of the *natural* hierarchy.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis

Apoptosis ( /ˌæpəˈtoʊsɪs/)[1][2] is the process of programmed cell death (PCD) that may occur in multicellular organisms.[3] Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (morphology) and death. These changes include blebbing, cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation, chromatin condensation, and chromosomal DNA fragmentation. (See also apoptotic DNA fragmentation.)

In contrast to necrosis, which is a form of traumatic cell death that results from acute cellular injury, apoptosis, in general, confers advantages during an organism's life cycle. For example, the differentiation of fingers and toes in a developing human embryo occurs because cells between the fingers apoptose; the result is that the digits are separate. Unlike necrosis, apoptosis produces cell fragments called apoptotic bodies that phagocytic cells are able to engulf and quickly remove before the contents of the cell can spill out onto surrounding cells and cause damage.[4]

Between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day due to apoptosis in the average human adult. For an average child between the ages of 8 and 14, approximately 20 billion to 30 billion cells die a day.[5]

Research in and around apoptosis has increased substantially since the early 1990s. In addition to its importance as a biological phenomenon, defective apoptotic processes have been implicated in an extensive variety of diseases. Excessive apoptosis causes atrophy, whereas an insufficient amount results in uncontrolled cell proliferation, such as cancer.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Strannik, Let's see if I can clear anything up this morning before I head out for a fishing trip before an approaching storm arrives.

Strannik, you noted that life's pattern of organization is a "non-hierarchic network of similar units tied with concrete relationships." Well, life's organization is non-hierarchic in the sense that there are no external, "higher," dictatorial levels of relations, but life's organization is "hierarchical" in the sense that new levels of organization emerge from life's pattern of organization as complexity increases and requires. All these levels, such as cells to organs to bodies, exist in life's pattern though, and as all living systems are self-organizing, they do not dictate to each other. They are self-organizing in the dynamic interdependence of the bootstrap of life.

So grassroots, workers-council structures are naturally organized internally, and need to carefully mesh their internal grassroots structure with their external Process--their life activity; meaning, purpose. Viable forms of human community will manifest life's pattern of organization internally and externally, and I think of this as consciously aiming to create living systems in everything we do. Thus the internal community attempts to design external living relations (Process) that are also forms of community. Example: a species has a habitat niche (living system) and species create food webs (living systems). A communist workplace would create communal external relations with the elements of society with which it connects and communal, ecological relations with the natural world.

As I've repeatedly remarked, communism and anarchism manifest natural organization, and Capra's triangle makes it possible to naturally organize them.

As for humans producing and reproducing through trial and error, Capra's triangle enables people to eliminate most of the error in our designs. The triangle models the organization we must employ to create our many potential forms of natural, grassrooted human community. And as you have suggested, Strannik, misdesigned social systems will fail. Capitalism is failing. As for the perils of nuclear power, we don't need the triangle to tell us we absolutely cannot employ nuclear power within capitalist relations, nor would we probably employ it beyond a transitional stage after anarchist/communist revolution.

ckaihatsu, I apply natural organization to human organization because we are natural products of the creation of life on Earth and must learn to live naturally. Underneath all that self-organization that has emerged into the complexity that has resulted in a "partial" human consciousness, we are self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity, and must obey the laws of our organizational systemic nature. From the initial appearance of chemical, primitive forms of life on Earth to the present, all living systems have existed in the pattern of organization portrayed by the triangle. This is the one and only pattern by which matter self-organizes to emerge into a living system and the life process on Earth.

Humans and our social systems are self-oranized matter, and this really, really matters.

So the triangle serves to consciously eliminate unnecessary trial and error. At present, without the triangle or a similar guide, we are much too reliant on a trial and error that is additionally compromised by taking place within the institutions and values of the capitalist system.

Strannik, you made a comment re-process determining structure in some instances that I want to reply to but am having difficulty recalling sufficiently. As I cannot access your post without losing this one, I'll return to this point tomorrow. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I apply natural organization to human organization because we are natural products of the creation of life on Earth and must learn to live naturally. Underneath all that self-organization that has emerged into the complexity that has resulted in a "partial" human consciousness, we are self-organized matter network-patterned with its life activity, and must obey the laws of our organizational systemic nature.


I can appreciate this fact at a fundamental, *physical* level, but you're consistently reticent to acknowledge that there is a distinct *paradigm shift* when human society takes over where nature has left off. (Though I'm glad to see your mention of workers councils in your exchange with Strannik.)

'Natural organization' is no *prescription* -- much less a blueprint -- for how humanity can organize its productivity and corresponding economics. A certain 'translation' of these elements, to the social-political realm, would be useful here.





From the initial appearance of chemical, primitive forms of life on Earth to the present, all living systems have existed in the pattern of organization portrayed by the triangle. This is the one and only pattern by which matter self-organizes to emerge into a living system and the life process on Earth.

Humans and our social systems are self-oranized matter, and this really, really matters.

So the triangle serves to consciously eliminate unnecessary trial and error. At present, without the triangle or a similar guide, we are much too reliant on a trial and error that is additionally compromised by taking place within the institutions and values of the capitalist system.


I'm glad to have come across this triangle framework, and I've created visual-space-type frameworks myself (as you know), for the same reason of having empirically accurate conceptual guides available as a touchstone.

tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-diagrams-revleft

[Strannik]

Technically speaking there is no vegetative nervous system because plants don't have a specialized cellular system for electrochemical nerve impulses as animals do.

Sorry, a language mistake on my part. What I meant here is in english called "autonomous nervous system". The one regulating involuntary processes. Didn't bother to check it. :)

[Strannik]

So grassroots, workers-council structures are naturally organized internally, and need to carefully mesh their internal grassroots structure with their external Process--their life activity; meaning, purpose. Viable forms of human community will manifest life's pattern of organization internally and externally, and I think of this as consciously aiming to create living systems in everything we do. Thus the internal community attempts to design external living relations (Process) that are also forms of community. Example: a species has a habitat niche (living system) and species create food webs (living systems). A communist workplace would create communal external relations with the elements of society with which it connects and communal, ecological relations with the natural world.

As I've repeatedly remarked, communism and anarchism manifest natural organization, and Capra's triangle makes it possible to naturally organize them.

Let us take following example. I know such speculation is science fiction, but perhaps it helps me to understand your politics better.

Post-revolution (to keep things simple), there's a council that has an energy problem. Someone suggests to build a nuclear reactor. And not one of these fancy new ones, but one like they had in Chernobyl i.e. the kind that probably should not be built.

How do you visualize Grand Global Commune deals with this? Is there a "higher" form of specialized scientific/engineering councils that assesses dangerous technologies and advices communes on projects that are too risky? I.e like a nervous system. Is there a Surpreme Council (like Lenin suggested), that puts the project on hold (or advises neighbouring communes to cut ties to the one with this dangerous project - like brain?) What I mean is - are there complex networks that determine parameters of existence for other, simpler networks?

Or, does the structure of the commune determine their process (i.e their way of life, dreams) in such a manner that no one even suggests this kind of dangerous solution/it would never have enough support to have a chance of realization?

Your following quote makes me think that you support the second idea:


As for humans producing and reproducing through trial and error, Capra's triangle enables people to eliminate most of the error in our designs. The triangle models the organization we must employ to create our many potential forms of natural, grassrooted human community. And as you have suggested, Strannik, misdesigned social systems will fail. Capitalism is failing.

As for the perils of nuclear power, we don't need the triangle to tell us we absolutely cannot employ nuclear power within capitalist relations, nor would we probably employ it beyond a transitional stage after anarchist/communist revolution.

So the triangle serves to consciously eliminate unnecessary trial and error. At present, without the triangle or a similar guide, we are much too reliant on a trial and error that is additionally compromised by taking place within the institutions and values of the capitalist system.I'm not a fan of capitalist innovation system, where we throw everything we can think of at the world until money starts falling out. But I'm very much a supporter of science and technological progress :) What's your opinion on innovation process of natural human communities?

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, MN, here's the update -- lemme know. Later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Strannik, Thanks for the new models, ckaihatsu. I want to address the comment Strannik made re-process determining structure and use it to reveal the deep underlying relations of human consciousness that make it a partial consciousness that misses organization, and I'll get to your models in my next post. On Triangle 2, though, I'll offer that I see it as needing that cluster of components in center of circle, and a double arrow leading from them to Process angle, and that double arrow becoming a quadruple arrow as it continues through the Process angle to include an external double arrow pointing to an external cluster of components that represent the environment and then points back again to the Process angle.

Now that I think of it, I like this proposal for Triangle 2 a lot. I believe it simply and accurately reveals the organizational relations of life on Earth.

Now that I've deviated from my initial focus, I'll end this post with two clean-up points: Yes, Strannik, I strongly believe we don't need a triangle to tell us that we cannot employ nuclear power save under the most stringent precautions, measures that definitely will not be taken under capitalism. So I take position 2 on this.

And, ckaihatsu, I continue to be surprised when you suggest that I need to emphasize the triangle's social applications such as workers' councils more. Perhaps I do, and perhaps I need to remember that what I might take for granted can be unseen by others. However, I will note that in my personal profile written a year-and-a-half ago I emphasized developing a viable revolutionary organizing theory, and that in fact everything I do has to do with applying revolutionary theory to the organization of revolutionary social processes. So, not only does most everything I think have to do with social systems, I am absolutely obsessed with social transformation.

Now I'll get to that post on the problematic organization of human perception/consciousness.

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, ckaihatsu, Strannik had a couple of questions I'll try to answer in this post, then I'll get to the "human consciousness--process/structure" post.

Strannik asks, "Are there complex networks that determine parameters of existence for other, simpler networks?" I believe the answer is yes and no. It is "yes" in the sense that cells, for instance, must engage and dynamically coexist with the "more complex" organs and body, and from them to the complex environment. I put "more complex" in quotation marks, as there is a continuing controversy over just what complexity is and means and how it might be measured.

The answer is "No,", though, in the sense that all of these systems have the same pattern of organization and, thus, the same complexity in some measures.

As I've noted, this "Capra's triangle project" is on the cutting edge of science and revolutionary Marxist organizing. I just received the first popular book written on complexity for some time: Melanie Mitchell's Complexity: A Guided Tour (2009). This book confirms my belief that complexity theory and its center, the Santa Fe Institute, have become stagnant, and I attribute this to the overall intellectual stasis a mature-senile, entropic capitalist system manufactures.

As for the controversy surrounding just what complexity is, Dr. Mitchell recounts the amusing and amazing tale wherein the major players at SFI appeared before a group of summer students, and, in response to a question asking for a definition of complexity, immediately and heatedly disagreed on the definition and nature of complexity.

You also asked for my "opinion on the innovation process of natural human community." Well, it's a grassroots process and must be so, and as chaos theory tells us we must be very careful of initial conditions, I believe anarchist/communist revolutions must get off on the right track or they will fail. Your comment re-fSU illustrates this: conditions were impossible, and when the Party took control and the soviets were dismantled, the Russian Revolution had failed.

Another critical question is that of violence. I don't see how massive revolutionary conflict can lead to anarchist/communist systems where people co-exist peacefully. Revolutionary processes that get off on the wrong track will tend to continue to a dead end. In other words, perhaps relatively peaceful revolutions are the only potentially viable form. Thus a revolutionary process in the US would need to be careful to find ways to engage people and not irredemiably alienate them.

So the innovation process of natural human community would be to come together in mutal understanding of life's organization to create natural (anarchist/communist) ways of communal living. Life is community, and so are anarchism and communism. So is a brainstorming session, and I believe formal and informal brainstorming will be prominent in future realized human social systems as people consciously design their lives together in community.

To do so, though, requires a revolution in human thinking. Humanity must understand and overcome its partial conciousness that is blind to life's critical underlying organization.

Now to the post in which I will try to concretely outline how life's universal pattern of organization has produced our human "consciousness problem." My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, ckaihatsu, RevLeft being down yesterday enabled a "day off" in which I thought over this post, which I believe is an important post that will successfully show how the universal pattern of organization of life on Earth results in an inadequate human perception/consciousness. Lacking such a device as the triangle, human consciousness is incomplete and does not facilitate the "organizational vision" necessary to a conscious organization of our lives.

Strannik wrote: "In human organisms higher brain functions can override even basic survival instincts of the entire organism. Isn't this a naturally evolving hierarchical relationship? And if so, it would mean that the process is actually determining the structure." (emphasis mine)

I hadn't thought of the consciousness problem as a process/structure problem, Strannik, but this is a fertile way of approaching the subject. However, I'd turn your observation around to state that the structure of human consciousness tends to produce an invalid process (our mental engagement with the world prior to creating our social world).

Let's exclusively focus on material organizational relations here. Life is created by and composed of living systems, which are defined as self-organizing, integrated wholes existing in dynamic interdependence with their environment of other living systems and physical forces. A cell is the base living system, and cells self-organize to emerge into "higher, more complex" levels of being that are always based in the cell and life's universal pattern of organization.

So how are these living systems organized? They are self-organizing matter network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; how they integrate into the environment to make their living). Internal components self-organize into the living system that engages the environment to create energy and habitat sources that maintain the components and the living system they create.

ckaihatsu, Triangle 2 as I outlined it earlier provides an excellent portrayal of the relations we'll be following.

Let's start with a bacterium (simple cell). The bacterium's components have created a cell with a membrane through which the bacterium engages its surround. This simple cell's membrane has a few sensory and motor cells that suffice to maintain it in its "simple" engagement with life.

Cells can merge into multi-cellular, big bodies, though. What happens then? As multicellulars develop more complex internal and environmental relations, they need to coordinate all this activity, and the internal living system that we call a brain develops. This brain is connected both internally to the multicellular and externally to its environment. It thus has a dual environment.


But human activities are incredibly complex: we must design our living arrangements and environment. Thus with the development of social being and language with which we coordinate our sociality and labor by which we create our social systems, our lives became exceedingly complex and required an increasingly complex internal coordinator (brain) for all this activity.

Now please remember that living systems require internal coordinators once their life activity becomes complex beyond a point. Now try to engage this reality: the human brain--a living system--became so complex it required an internal coordinator!!! This "inner brain" is referred to as the interneurons and is the source of our "consciousness problem."

Picture a large ball and place a smaller ball within. The large ball is the outer brain, and the small is the interneurons. Notice they are separate, and this "inner brain" is indeed semi-separate from the reality of the external world it needs to engage. The large ball represents the outer sensory and motor neurons with which the environment is engaged, and here confusion arises.

The interneurons of the brain's massive internal structure outnumber the motor and sensory neurons by the astounding ratio of 100,000:10:1. Just think of this! And this "inner brain" is even physically separated from its outer sensory and motor neurons to a degree by long axons.

So what does this inner brain tell us? It turns out that the stimuli received by the sensory and motor neurons that directly engage the environment are joined in the interneurons by all sorts of "polluting" signals from our species and individual histories. This results in an homeostatic imbalance with the rest of life as we wallow in our particular species being and violate our overall organizational being. So when God supposedly gave us dominion over the rest of life, God was in violation of life's rules. This "God" created capitalism, not life.

So an environmental signal engaged by a sensory neuron is joined on its path to its receiving center by hundreds of signals from other, internal sources, and our individual histories become a major player and distorter of reality. Let's use racism as our example here. People develop racial vision, and they interpret other people racially and not as people. Obama thus becomes an object of insensate hatred from many simply due to his skin color.

Let's see if this can be simply summarized. Following rules of natural organization, the human brain became so complex through socialization, language, and labor that an inner brain developed to coordinate the brain's environmental coordination. This inner brain, though, gets its environmental realities mixed up with species and individual historical realities, and thus we misperceive and misinterpret the world. And we cannot see the organization underlying life's things. So we have a polluted perception/consciousness that is blind to organization, and this condition, unless corrected, dooms the human species.

This condition, if corrected, will enable humanity to enjoy a glorious, realized human future.

Please note that everything I have written is rooted in life's universal pattern of organization of its material living systems. Human consciousness followed life's rules to become unnatural.

The above "essay" is mainly informed by Maturana and Varela's concept of autopoiesis (self-organization) and its application to cognition. My three-book source for all of this is Maturana and Varela's Tree of Knowledge, Capra's Web of Life, and John Mingers' Self-Producing Systems.

I know this is mindboggling, despite the simplicity of life's organization. You might think of the difficulties the human mind has in engaging the realities of the new physics when you get stuck. It isn't that quantum and relativity theory aren't real, but that human perception/consciousness has great difficulty in seeing them.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Strannik, Thanks for the new models, ckaihatsu.


Yep.





On Triangle 2, though, I'll offer that I see it as needing that cluster of components in center of circle, and a double arrow leading from them to Process angle, and that double arrow becoming a quadruple arrow as it continues through the Process angle to include an external double arrow pointing to an external cluster of components that represent the environment and then points back again to the Process angle.

Now that I think of it, I like this proposal for Triangle 2 a lot. I believe it simply and accurately reveals the organizational relations of life on Earth.


Okay, I'm noticing a few issues right away:

- I can do a 'cluster of components' in the center, but it will not be 3-D, since this version is (obviously) 2-D. Also, the cluster will displace the existing title, so you may want to specify an alternate location for that.

- I've been placing the double-double-arrows at the medians *between* the pairs of the angles (on the sides, in other words) since it's made sense that way. What you're describing would be only *one* double-arrow, placed in the acute crook of the Process angle -- a second one, in series, for *outside* of that point in the triangle would obviously run into the type element for 'Process (life activity)'. This issue existed in prior versions and I haven't mentioned it, opting to fall back to the way I just described, with evident results. You may want to clarify this aspect of the design at this point so that it can be satisfactorily and decisively resolved.





And, ckaihatsu, I continue to be surprised when you suggest that I need to emphasize the triangle's social applications such as workers' councils more. Perhaps I do, and perhaps I need to remember that what I might take for granted can be unseen by others. However, I will note that in my personal profile written a year-and-a-half ago I emphasized developing a viable revolutionary organizing theory, and that in fact everything I do has to do with applying revolutionary theory to the organization of revolutionary social processes. So, not only does most everything I think have to do with social systems, I am absolutely obsessed with social transformation.


This 'revolutionary organizing theory' is not available at your profile page(s) -- you may want to include a link to it, wherever it may be.





Strannik asks, "Are there complex networks that determine parameters of existence for other, simpler networks?" I believe the answer is yes and no. It is "yes" in the sense that cells, for instance, must engage and dynamically coexist with the "more complex" organs and body, and from them to the complex environment. I put "more complex" in quotation marks, as there is a continuing controversy over just what complexity is and means and how it might be measured.


MN, I think you're exaggerating the differences of interpretation that exist around 'complexity', if they exist at all. While the term will have different *shades* of meaning in varying contexts, its fundamental meaning is *not* unclear or ambiguous as you seem to be indicating.

In the language of stark mathematics we can define 'complexity' as the amount of variation from the standard deviation for any of a series of groups:





100 × [(standard deviation of array X)/ (average of array X)] = relative standard deviation expressed as a percentage[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_standard_deviation


In the *biological* context we can simply look to the variety of internal, or sub-, components, and processes -- organs, for example, encompass a greater variety (complexity) of component types of cells than the component types of cells themselves, separated, without interaction.





Strannik asks, "Are there complex networks that determine parameters of existence for other, simpler networks?"




The answer is "No,", though, in the sense that all of these systems have the same pattern of organization and, thus, the same complexity in some measures.

As I've noted, this "Capra's triangle project" is on the cutting edge of science and revolutionary Marxist organizing. I just received the first popular book written on complexity for some time: Melanie Mitchell's Complexity: A Guided Tour (2009). This book confirms my belief that complexity theory and its center, the Santa Fe Institute, have become stagnant, and I attribute this to the overall intellectual stasis a mature-senile, entropic capitalist system manufactures.

As for the controversy surrounding just what complexity is, Dr. Mitchell recounts the amusing and amazing tale wherein the major players at SFI appeared before a group of summer students, and, in response to a question asking for a definition of complexity, immediately and heatedly disagreed on the definition and nature of complexity.




You also asked for my "opinion on the innovation process of natural human community." Well, it's a grassroots process and must be so, and as chaos theory tells us we must be very careful of initial conditions, I believe anarchist/communist revolutions must get off on the right track or they will fail. Your comment re-fSU illustrates this: conditions were impossible, and when the Party took control and the soviets were dismantled, the Russian Revolution had failed.

Another critical question is that of violence. I don't see how massive revolutionary conflict can lead to anarchist/communist systems where people co-exist peacefully. Revolutionary processes that get off on the wrong track will tend to continue to a dead end. In other words, perhaps relatively peaceful revolutions are the only potentially viable form. Thus a revolutionary process in the US would need to be careful to find ways to engage people and not irredemiably alienate them.


You're conflating chaos theory with complexity theory here, and the two are *not* the same -- while chaos theory has enjoyed far more coverage and popularity, its principle of 'the butterfly effect' is too often misapplied and invoked in a conservatively cautionary way.

You are revealing a less-than-revolutionary politics here if you maintain that chaos theory provides a prescriptive definition and direction for proletarian revolution, namely a necessarily *non-violent* one. It should suffice to remind you, and the reader, that violence is currently monopolized by the capitalist state and that it is employed by the state routinely to repel challenges to its rule.

[ckaihatsu]

[The] brain is connected both internally to the multicellular and externally to its environment. It thus has a dual environment.

But human activities are incredibly complex: we must design our living arrangements and environment. Thus with the development of social being and language with which we coordinate our sociality and labor by which we create our social systems, our lives became exceedingly complex and required an increasingly complex internal coordinator (brain) for all this activity.


This assertion is *very* debatable, to be kind -- you're saying that social life / interactions for the primitive human animal, along with a (purported) need for verbal language, are what spurred evolutionary brain development.

I'll note that other primates in existence are *very* social and don't necessarily require large brains or formal language in order to facilitate their (complex) social structures.

Granted, human activities are more sophisticated and intricate than other primates', but that fact does not automatically relate to a *requirement* for increased brain mass.

You're asserting a spurious chain of causation here, one that could -- ironically and amusingly enough -- be addressed and resolved using complexity theory.





Now please remember that living systems require internal coordinators once their life activity becomes complex beyond a point. Now try to engage this reality: the human brain--a living system--became so complex it required an internal coordinator!!! This "inner brain" is referred to as the interneurons and is the source of our "consciousness problem."

Picture a large ball and place a smaller ball within. The large ball is the outer brain, and the small is the interneurons. Notice they are separate, and this "inner brain" is indeed semi-separate from the reality of the external world it needs to engage. The large ball represents the outer sensory and motor neurons with which the environment is engaged, and here confusion arises.


Your description here is anatomically incorrect, *and* functionally incorrect -- a differentiation of neural functions does *not* *automatically* give rise to "confusion", as you're contending, as a matter of pure anatomy.





http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/brain3.htm


Most invertebrates (such as the lobster) have modest "brains" that consist of localized collections of neuronal cell bodies called ganglia. Each ganglion controls sensory and motor functions in its segment through reflex pathways, and the ganglia are linked together to form a simple nervous system. As nervous systems evolved, chains of ganglia evolved into more centralized simple brains.

Brains evolved from ganglia of invertebrates. Regardless of the animal, brains have the following parts:

The brain stem, which consists of the medulla (an enlarged portion of the upper spinal cord), pons and midbrain (lower animals have only a medulla). The brain stem controls the reflexes and automatic functions (heart rate, blood pressure), limb movements and visceral functions (digestion, urination).

[...]

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'll get to your first post here. Did you forget, amid objections to details, to comment on my overall thesis: that life's material self-organization results in a consciousness that overemphasizes the brain's internal relations over the environmental relations that are to be perceived? This phenomenon arises from physical, material organizational relations, as does life.

My reference to my "About Me" in which I emphasized revolutionary organizing theory simply states what I am about, but I do have a complete twenty-page outline of the "red-green theory of life, community, and revolution" that I term "A Red-Green Basics Training" that is available to any comrades who might be interested. As for links, I do not know how to link or accomplish any other computer task other than post. As I've written, I'll take a class this winter. This class has been delayed as I've found the left's pervasive conservatism and seeming determination to stay stuck so depressing.

You wrote that I'm "exaggerating the differences of interpretation that exist around complexity" and continued to note there is a mathematical measure: "we can define complexity as the amount of variation from the standard deviation for any series of groups ...."

Well, ckaihatsu, you may believe you have a definitive measure of complexity, despite the ongoing problems you and I have discussing complexity, but complexity scientists disagree. I'll tautologically but accurately insist: complexity is complex. Here is M. Mitchell Waldrop in Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992), one of those books you need to engage. These are the very first words that appear in this work: "This is a book about the science of complexity--a subject that's still so new and so wide-ranging that nobody knows quite how to define it, or even where its boundaries lie."

Here is Roger Lewin in that other complexity book I recommend along with Capra and Waldrop, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (1999): "As there are more than a score of definitions of complexity to be found in the science's literature ..."

You provide a mathematical attempt to define complexity, ckaihatsu, but then in the next paragraph write, "In the biological context we can look to the variety of internal, or sub-components and processes ..." So your definition(s) are becoming complex, as is complexity.

Einstein philosophically, visually engaged quantum and relativity's space-time before he developed mathematical equations, and if people are to understand quantum and relativity phenomena, they must do so with "scientific-philosophical vision," and not math. I am a revolutionary organizing theorist, not a mathematician, and the world's people need to become revolutionary organizing theorists so they may organize their lives into various forms of community. Mathematics will be tangential to such a process.

Aren't you spending too much time in classical scientific concerns, ckaihatsu, and theeby missing the deeply radical, revolutionary implications of life's universal pattern of organization?

Thus you wrote that I am "conflating chaos theory with complexity theory" in my brief exposition on chaos theory's admonition to take especial care with the intital conditions of group or process formation, for all that ensues will grow from the initial base. I then added that this indicates that violent approaches to revolutionary organizing in the US are a non-starter, for they turn people off who must be turned on. I also suggested that violent beginnings will tend to vitiate communal revolutionary processes.

I stand on my observations, and I am "conflating" the sciences of organization--the "new sciences" to which I repeatedly refer. I am "conflating" what reductionist science has unnaturally separated and I am applying the scientific understanding of life's organization to human social systems, a focus you repeatedly recommend. This is a brand-new revolutionary ballgame, though, and you are closing your mind to the new approach required.

So we wind up in our present impasse wherein I have what you say you want (models for Triangle 1 and 2, and a twenty-page outline of the red-green revolutionary organizing theory), but am unable to send them to you.

Here's Triangle 2 as I see it. There is a circle representing a living system and inside the circle is a core of little circles representing the lower-level components that create the organism. The big circle is then enclosed by a triangle representing life's universal pattern of organization. The angles are labeled Matter, Pattern, and Process, with Process being the top angle. Now draw a double arrow from the lower-level components to the edge of the circle immediately opposite the Process angle to indicate that in a living system, the parts make the whole and the whole makes the parts. Now construct a second double arrow from the first that passes through the Process angle to point to a cluster of little circles external to the triangle and back again, making this a quadruple arrow. Those little external circles represent the environment of living systems and physical forces with which a living system is inseparably, dynamically interdependent, and the quadruple arrow indicates all this interrelatedness.

I really like this model. I believe it successfully pictures life's universal pattern of organization and best makes this organization available to understanding by regular people. A mathematical equation would be unintelligible to such people (and myself), and there is no such equation, while there is a triangle.

As for text, I am thinking this second triangle would need to begin with those definitions for a living system and the "formula" for triangle operation: "arrange people and materials in the network pattern appropriate to its life activity."

Then I would post the following two explanations in something like:
1) This model portrays lower-level components self-organizing into a living system (circle) according to life's universal pattern of organization (triangle). In a living system, components make the whole and the whole makes the components (double arrow), and a living system is dynamically interdependent with its environment of other living systems and physical forces (double arrow/quadruple arrow).
2) Triangle operators, individually or in groups (best), are to engage their situation with "triangle vision" to design (self-organize) a project that will "come alive." Such a project designed in the pattern of life will be self-organized Matter network-Patterned with its life activity (Process: what it does; in human terms, its meaning and purpose).

Now I'll get to any unanswered points from your second post. My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I couldn't make any sense of your second post and am trying mightily not to reply offensively. But do you really believe that the evolving human primate's increasingly complex social and environmental relations didn't necessitate an increasing and corresponding complexity of the brain and its organization?

Engels didn't. "When after thousands of years of struggle the differentiation of hand from foot, and erect gait were finally established, man became distinct from the ape and the basis was laid for the development of articulate speech and the mighty development of the brain tht has since made the gulf between man and the ape an unbridgeable one. The specialization of the hand--this implies the tool, and the tool implies human activity, the transforming reaction of man on nature, production .... But step by step with the development of the hand went that of the brain .... And with the rapidly growing knowledge of the laws of nature the means of reacting on nature also grew; the hand alone would never have achieved the steam-engine if, along with and parallel to the hand, and partly owing to it, the brain of man had not correspondingly developed." (Dialectics of Nature)

So I don't know why you objected to my posting that as external relations become more complex, an organism's internal organizational relations must keep apace by developing more complex internal coordinators (brains). What I posted is in agreement with basic Marxism and science.

The interneurons, which "sit" between motor and sensory neurons and mediate them and outnumber them at that astounding ratio of 100,000:10:1 are a reality. So is the fact that humans who must organize their lives naturally cannot see natural organization. But as I've previously noted, I/we are engaging cutting-edge science, and I listed the three scientific works that best reveal the physical organizational roots of the human "consciousness problem."

This is not common knowledge, ckaihatsu, but it is science!

And an environmental stimulus that is engaged by sensory neurons is joined on its passage to its receptor center by hundreds of other internal signals, not functions. Functions arise when these polluted signals merge into the brain's response--a response that is unduly affected by individual and species history. Thus humans have an inherent tendency to misperceive reality, which is a fatal flaw for those who must design their lives.

And now we are back to chaos theory's warning to be very careful of the extraordinarily sensitive conditions surrounding the creation of a system, for they greatly affect its development. Humans must thus know how to organize in life's pattern, lest we get ruinously off track with socio-economic systems such as capitalism. And it is also my hunch that violent beginnings will tend to prohibit the development of peaceful, communal forms of living, but I don't for a moment believe capitalism will peacefully allow revolutionary organizing. I just see revolutionaries as needing to keep revolutionary processes under their tactical and strategic control and keep them as non-violent as possible and avoid unnecessary provocations of our enormously powerful and violent enemy. Until, at least, we get organized.

Human perception/consciousness is inherently reductive and conservative and Capra's triangle is the mental corrective humanity must learn and apply.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'll get to your first post here. Did you forget, amid objections to details, to comment on my overall thesis: that life's material self-organization results in a consciousness that overemphasizes the brain's internal relations over the environmental relations that are to be perceived? This phenomenon arises from physical, material organizational relations, as does life.


No disagreement here, MN -- I tend to think of this empirical reality as resulting from modern-day civilization and relatively close living quarters. In more pastoral times people may have possibly been able to be more autonomous, and in more direct contact with the natural environment.





My reference to my "About Me" in which I emphasized revolutionary organizing theory simply states what I am about, but I do have a complete twenty-page outline of the "red-green theory of life, community, and revolution" that I term "A Red-Green Basics Training" that is available to any comrades who might be interested. As for links, I do not know how to link or accomplish any other computer task other than post. As I've written, I'll take a class this winter. This class has been delayed as I've found the left's pervasive conservatism and seeming determination to stay stuck so depressing.


20 pages may just be a post or two here at RevLeft -- the posting size limit is fairly accommodating.





You wrote that I'm "exaggerating the differences of interpretation that exist around complexity" and continued to note there is a mathematical measure: "we can define complexity as the amount of variation from the standard deviation for any series of groups ...."

Well, ckaihatsu, you may believe you have a definitive measure of complexity, despite the ongoing problems you and I have discussing complexity, but complexity scientists disagree. I'll tautologically but accurately insist: complexity is complex. Here is M. Mitchell Waldrop in Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992), one of those books you need to engage. These are the very first words that appear in this work: "This is a book about the science of complexity--a subject that's still so new and so wide-ranging that nobody knows quite how to define it, or even where its boundaries lie."


Yeah, I've been over a handful of those titles, but it was back in the mid-'90s -- nonetheless the importance of the topic stays with me to this day.

The passage you supplied is cool-sounding, but is also sensational and commercializing -- borderline hyperbole, really.

I'll continue to maintain that any "complexities" over 'complexity' are just due to shades of difference according to domain. The concept, as I shared in its formal mathematical definition, is *not* a difficult one to comprehend, and even use. (I also provided a source of an *artistic* display of 'complexity' in post #108.)





Here is Roger Lewin in that other complexity book I recommend along with Capra and Waldrop, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (1999): "As there are more than a score of definitions of complexity to be found in the science's literature ..."

You provide a mathematical attempt to define complexity, ckaihatsu, but then in the next paragraph write, "In the biological context we can look to the variety of internal, or sub-components and processes ..." So your definition(s) are becoming complex, as is complexity.


No, the term 'complexity' implies potentially wide-ranging variance, even over form and topic, whereas the *manifestation* of complexity in any given formal domain does *not* vary in the nature of its meaning -- it remains consistent.

My mentioning of the biological domain only referenced the structure of *hierarchy*, which -- in terms of complexity -- is quite regular and orderly.





Einstein philosophically, visually engaged quantum and relativity's space-time before he developed mathematical equations, and if people are to understand quantum and relativity phenomena, they must do so with "scientific-philosophical vision," and not math. I am a revolutionary organizing theorist, not a mathematician, and the world's people need to become revolutionary organizing theorists so they may organize their lives into various forms of community.




Mathematics will be tangential to such a process.


Whatever. You're showing an intellectual prejudice or bias here.





Aren't you spending too much time in classical scientific concerns, ckaihatsu, and theeby missing the deeply radical, revolutionary implications of life's universal pattern of organization?


These social-political 'implications' are only vaguely mentioned in your words, MN, and continue to be unspecified in any cohesive, clear-cut way.

(You *could* say something along the lines of "In nature there is a dynamic X that indicates that we, as humanity, should organize according to the principle of X'.") [X-prime, or a similar variant of X.]





Thus you wrote that I am "conflating chaos theory with complexity theory" in my brief exposition on chaos theory's admonition to take especial care with the intital conditions of group or process formation, for all that ensues will grow from the initial base. I then added that this indicates that violent approaches to revolutionary organizing in the US are a non-starter, for they turn people off who must be turned on. I also suggested that violent beginnings will tend to vitiate communal revolutionary processes.




I stand on my observations, and I am "conflating" the sciences of organization--the "new sciences" to which I repeatedly refer.


Glad to hear that you concur with my observation -- to take the intention in your statement here as being a serious, literal one.

To reiterate, chaos theory is *not* the same as complexity theory -- they are distinctly different tools, and to apply chaos theory *instead of* complexity may be a choice of an inappropriate tool.





I am "conflating" what reductionist science has unnaturally separated and I am applying the scientific understanding of life's organization to human social systems, a focus you repeatedly recommend. This is a brand-new revolutionary ballgame, though, and you are closing your mind to the new approach required.


No, what you're doing here is psychologically *displacing* the deficit of a demonstrated fault on your part (conflating chaos and complexity) onto *me* by mischaracterizing my position on the new sciences.

Also please note again that you have *not detailed* your "new approach [to human social systems]" based on life's organization -- that means that your accusation that I have "closed my mind" to the new approach is impossible since it has not even been presented yet.





So we wind up in our present impasse wherein I have what you say you want (models for Triangle 1 and 2, and a twenty-page outline of the red-green revolutionary organizing theory), but am unable to send them to you.


No prob. No rush.





ckaihatsu, I couldn't make any sense of your second post and am trying mightily not to reply offensively. But do you really believe that the evolving human primate's increasingly complex social and environmental relations didn't necessitate an increasing and corresponding complexity of the brain and its organization?


Not that it's my "belief" -- really more of my *conclusion* -- and, *yes*, I do contend that evolutionary brain development was *not* spurred by "increasingly complex social and environment relations", as far as I know.

I will include the disclaimer that this is not a topic I've looked at thoroughly, and also that it has little political import, especially in this current context of discussion. I doubt I will be interested in refining this topic of understanding here.





Engels didn't. "When after thousands of years of struggle the differentiation of hand from foot, and erect gait were finally established, man became distinct from the ape and the basis was laid for the development of articulate speech and the mighty development of the brain tht has since made the gulf between man and the ape an unbridgeable one. The specialization of the hand--this implies the tool, and the tool implies human activity, the transforming reaction of man on nature, production .... But step by step with the development of the hand went that of the brain .... And with the rapidly growing knowledge of the laws of nature the means of reacting on nature also grew; the hand alone would never have achieved the steam-engine if, along with and parallel to the hand, and partly owing to it, the brain of man had not correspondingly developed." (Dialectics of Nature)


Yeah -- your included quotation here supports the thesis that increased potentials for *manual* abilities is what spurred brain development.





So I don't know why you objected to my posting that as external relations become more complex, an organism's internal organizational relations must keep apace by developing more complex internal coordinators (brains). What I posted is in agreement with basic Marxism and science.


You're continuing to posit that increased social and environmental complexities are what led to evolutionary brain development, and larger brain size. For the record I'll rebuff this.





The interneurons, which "sit" between motor and sensory neurons and mediate them and outnumber them at that astounding ratio of 100,000:10:1 are a reality. So is the fact that humans who must organize their lives naturally cannot see natural organization. But as I've previously noted, I/we are engaging cutting-edge science, and I listed the three scientific works that best reveal the physical organizational roots of the human "consciousness problem."

This is not common knowledge, ckaihatsu, but it is science!

And an environmental stimulus that is engaged by sensory neurons is joined on its passage to its receptor center by hundreds of other internal signals, not functions. Functions arise when these polluted signals merge into the brain's response--a response that is unduly affected by individual and species history. Thus humans have an inherent tendency to misperceive reality, which is a fatal flaw for those who must design their lives.

And now we are back to chaos theory's warning to be very careful of the extraordinarily sensitive conditions surrounding the creation of a system, for they greatly affect its development. Humans must thus know how to organize in life's pattern, lest we get ruinously off track with socio-economic systems such as capitalism. And it is also my hunch that violent beginnings will tend to prohibit the development of peaceful, communal forms of living, but I don't for a moment believe capitalism will peacefully allow revolutionary organizing. I just see revolutionaries as needing to keep revolutionary processes under their tactical and strategic control and keep them as non-violent as possible and avoid unnecessary provocations of our enormously powerful and violent enemy. Until, at least, we get organized.

Human perception/consciousness is inherently reductive and conservative and Capra's triangle is the mental corrective humanity must learn and apply.

My red-green best.

[Strannik]

Humans must thus know how to organize in life's pattern, lest we get ruinously off track with socio-economic systems such as capitalism.



Human perception/consciousness is inherently reductive and conservative and Capra's triangle is the mental corrective humanity must learn and apply.


I'm not competent to argue about brain size, but this is certainly not the view of Marx. Perhaps your statements are correct, but they are not marxist. Why?

You are saying that people are biologically incapable to have a revolution! And its a very different thing whether you say "the Left cannot organize because they have an incomplete theory" or "working class can never organize because they are biologically doomed to be blinded by abstractions".

Marx, however, belived that capitalist mode of production itself creates among wageworkers a class of people who have both motivation and ability to see through abstractions of capitalist society, much like bourgeoise developed once motivation and ability to see through abstractions of feudalism.

Workers develop this ability because they have actual, concrete experience and know-how about the workings of the world on the one hand and are forced by capitalist abstractions into poverty, stress and hunger on the other hand.

So, in essence it seems to me you are here no longer critizising Left (people who want to help along humanity's next historical transition), you are abandoning revolutionary role of the working class.

By the way, why do you think the Paris Commune took the form it took? This was long time before Capra's triangle. :)

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, You have radically misinterpreted what I'm saying. Everything I post is rooted in the organization of life and society (and the human brain) and I'm correctly insisting that the organizational pattern of life on Earth is also the human organizational pattern.

Human brain size is just fine for revolutionary processes, but its organization is reductive and conservative. Capra's triangle then overcomes this conservatism to potentially enable regular people to see and employ natural organization to lives so unnaturally organized by capitalism.

I posted that brain size and complexity increases as the size and complexity of organisms and their life activities increase. This is an evolutionary fact, and evolution is a natural revolutionary process. I then quoted Engels re-human brain development through labor, and Marxism focuses on the effects human labor and socio-economic systems have on human beings, our societies, and our consciousness.

Did you miss the Engels quotation? And where do you find any suggestion from me that human brain size prohibits revolutionary organizing? This would be clearly wrong. Human brain size is clearly adequate to conduct this radical discussion, for one matter.

I'm not an idiot, and if you run across something that indicates idiocy from me in the future, I invite you to consider that you will have almost certainly misinterpreted my presentation of the deep organization of life and society.

Did you see that analogy I posted wherein the difficulties everyone has in seeing organization are akin to the extreme difficulties people have in seeing the realities disclosed by the new physics' quantum and relativity theories? These difficulties are very real and emerge from the organization of the human brain, and I thought I had produced a clear, step-by-step outline of the manner by which life's universal pattern of organization of living systems results in a partial consciousness that overemphasizes individual and species history and thereby warps our perceptions.

So let's return to the beginning of all of this. Isn't it undeniably true that the things of life have an organization and that we see the things but not that organization?

I challenge every person at RevLeft to find fault with the preceding statement, and when they cannot, I further challenge them to radically engage the consciousness problem.

I've learned to see life's underlying organization, and so can others. First, though, these others must admit to themselves that organization is critical to life, society, Marxism, and revolution, and that they cannot see this organization and have historically failed to organize.

Marx revealed the underlying organization of capitalism, which opposes life in all its forms, but Marx did not have life's universal pattern of organization at hand with which to oppose capitalism. This information came later with the new sciences of organization.

In the meantime, I'm still waiting for a single comrade to admit the obvious: organization is critical and they can't see it! A pisser!

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Here's the update, MN, attached.

The only portion that *wasn't* doable was this part:





Now construct a second double arrow from the first that passes through the Process angle to point to a cluster of little circles external to the triangle and back again, making this a quadruple arrow.


As I mentioned before, this doesn't make visual structural (layout) sense, so I put it at the bottom instead. Later.

[Strannik]

Strannik, You have radically misinterpreted what I'm saying. Everything I post is rooted in the organization of life and society (and the human brain) and I'm correctly insisting that the organizational pattern of life on Earth is also the human organizational pattern.

Human brain size is just fine for revolutionary processes, but its organization is reductive and conservative. Capra's triangle then overcomes this conservatism to potentially enable regular people to see and employ natural organization to lives so unnaturally organized by capitalism.

I posted that brain size and complexity increases as the size and complexity of organisms and their life activities increase. This is an evolutionary fact, and evolution is a natural revolutionary process. I then quoted Engels re-human brain development through labor, and Marxism focuses on the effects human labor and socio-economic systems have on human beings, our societies, and our consciousness.

Did you miss the Engels quotation? And where do you find any suggestion from me that human brain size prohibits revolutionary organizing? This would be clearly wrong. Human brain size is clearly adequate to conduct this radical discussion, for one matter.

I'm not an idiot, and if you run across something that indicates idiocy from me in the future, I invite you to consider that you will have almost certainly misinterpreted my presentation of the deep organization of life and society.

Did you see that analogy I posted wherein the difficulties everyone has in seeing organization are akin to the extreme difficulties people have in seeing the realities disclosed by the new physics' quantum and relativity theories? These difficulties are very real and emerge from the organization of the human brain, and I thought I had produced a clear, step-by-step outline of the manner by which life's universal pattern of organization of living systems results in a partial consciousness that overemphasizes individual and species history and thereby warps our perceptions.

So let's return to the beginning of all of this. Isn't it undeniably true that the things of life have an organization and that we see the things but not that organization?

I challenge every person at RevLeft to find fault with the preceding statement, and when they cannot, I further challenge them to radically engage the consciousness problem.

I've learned to see life's underlying organization, and so can others. First, though, these others must admit to themselves that organization is critical to life, society, Marxism, and revolution, and that they cannot see this organization and have historically failed to organize.

Marx revealed the underlying organization of capitalism, which opposes life in all its forms, but Marx did not have life's universal pattern of organization at hand with which to oppose capitalism. This information came later with the new sciences of organization.

In the meantime, I'm still waiting for a single comrade to admit the obvious: organization is critical and they can't see it! A pisser!


This was not my criticism at all. I have nothing at all to say about brain size. I understood that your argument was - any human brain, without Capra's abstract model, is incapable of seeing the natural organization and not for ideological but biological reasons. It's not just class consciousness that makes us blind, we are blind by nature. And this cannot be a marxist standpoint. Sorry if I misunderstood your argument.

[Mr. Natural]

Strannik, ckaihatsu, I sure wish both of you would answer the question: Can you see the critical natural organization from which the visible things of life emerge? The answer is surely "No," but in answering this, you might force yourself to engage the stark reality I have been attempting to present--the reality (and it is a deeply radical, profound, potentially revolutionary reality) that human perception/consciousness cannot see and has not understood the organization we must bring to our lives.

Strannik wrote: "I understood that your argument was--any human brain without Capra's abstract model, is incapable of seeing the natural organization and not for ideological but biological reasons. It's not just class consciousness that makes us blind, we are blind by nature. And this cannot be a Marxist standpoint."

No need to apologize for confusion, Strannik, for the human inability to see life's critical organizational relations is indeed confusing, and I'm trying to shed light on what is a demonstrably problematic human consciousness of things that misses their inseparable and essential organizational relations. I will add that I provided what I thought was a simple but accurate example of the organization of the human self-reflective brain when I took the self-organization of matter into living systems on Earth from its bacterial beginnings through its eventuation in that most complex of all organisms--the human brain.

So my argument is, indeed, that for reasons of biological organization, humans are blind to organizational relations and need a model of life's natural organization if they are to live naturally. In fact, we must engage and employ life's organization if we are to escape capitalism and continue as a species.

But why is such a position un-Marxian? Because Marx/Engels didn't directly say this? Am I not correct in my repeated assertions that current Marxists must continue to update Marxism as capitalism advances and as the science that was unavailable to the original Marxists develops? Marx and Engels would surely be doing this were they alive!

As for the Marxian blindness of class consciousness, I place this in the category of a systemic blindness wherein you tend to filter existence through the lens of the systems that form you, and the proletariat is formed by capitalist relations. A powerful form of this systemic blindness is the Weltanschauung, or worldview by which people navigate life. People filter reality through their worldviews that are received from their environment and do not change them readily.

This little red-green project is definitely out to re-revolutionize Marxist and other left worldviews. I'm a Marxist and this is needed and I have that most revolutionary of mental tools: Capra's triangle.

The other category of perceptual blindness and the one I am stressing here is that of natural organizational relations that become unnatural in a self-reflective human mind that gets trapped in a species and individual bias and cannot see organization. This seems undeniable according to life's "mechanics," and it also seems undeniable that the left cannot organize.

All this emphasis on natural organization is hardly un-Marxian, and I believe once you read Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic that you will see how Marx engaged Hegelian philosophy and dialectics to gain a lifelong view of nature and society as living, organic, systemic processes. The materialist dialectic is a living dialectic, and Capra's triangle can bring it to life and praxis.

And now we're back to that question: Can you see the organization underlying life's things?

My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Progress has been made in Triangle 2 with the addition of the internal and external components. However, I still believe that quadruple arrow needs to pass through the Process angle, for it is through Process (life activity) that a living system engages its environment in dynamically interdependent relations.

I also think the triangle/circle needs to be larger, and the lettering for Matter/Pattern/Process smaller. This is a matter of perspective, and I see a need to emphasize unity and not details. I want people to see an inseparable pattern of organization as taking priority over Capra's reductively produced "categories."

How about that question I asked? Can you see organization? If not, isn't this really, really important? And not generally understood?

Thanks for the work you are doing. My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

Strannik, ckaihatsu, I sure wish both of you would answer the question: Can you see the critical natural organization from which the visible things of life emerge?


I'm sorry, MN, but I continue to see this as being overly vague and borderline religious / ideological, rather than edifying and instructive. To me it is, at best, a metaphor. (Again, human social systems are a paradigm shift over natural systems, and are far more complex and sophisticated -- and can be so, but even better, with the proletarian overthrow of capitalism -- though may still be subject to ground-level fundamental physical dynamics of material organization, as you're indicating.)

The 'triangle with labels' version of this project has been the best thing to come out of it, in terms of concepts (I still have to fine-tune the graphical elements and overall look of it).





The other category of perceptual blindness and the one I am stressing here is that of natural organizational relations that become unnatural in a self-reflective human mind that gets trapped in a species and individual bias and cannot see organization. This seems undeniable according to life's "mechanics," and it also seems undeniable that the left cannot organize.


I chalk this up to Marx's 'alienation' -- a *social* factor, not a biological or individualistic one.





ckaihatsu, Progress has been made in Triangle 2 with the addition of the internal and external components. However, I still believe that quadruple arrow needs to pass through the Process angle, for it is through Process (life activity) that a living system engages its environment in dynamically interdependent relations.


Okay, I'm thinking of overhauling the layout to allow for this -- Triangle 1 will be affected, in order to retain the visual similarity between the two.





I also think the triangle/circle needs to be larger, and the lettering for Matter/Pattern/Process smaller.


Okay -- ditto.





This is a matter of perspective, and I see a need to emphasize unity and not details. I want people to see an inseparable pattern of organization as taking priority over Capra's reductively produced "categories."




Thanks for the work you are doing. My red-green best.


No prob -- it's definitely worthwhile, and I hope you continue to improve your description of how nature's self-emergent organization can lend utility to potentials for a post-capitalist liberated social-political organization. (Repeating "Do you see it?" over and over again isn't enough.)

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for the continuing engagement and your last post, which more or less "proves" my contention that a paradigm shift of sorts in perception/consciousness will be required if the human species is to continue. The human species cannot exist any longer in global socio-economic systems opposed to life and its organization.

And Capra's triangle models life's universal organizational pattern to we who must learn to employ life's unseen relations.

I wrote, "Can you see the natural organization from which the visible things of life emerge?" You replied, "I continue to see this as being overly vague and borderline religious."

But, ckaihatsu, this is the whole point of the triangle. Life's organization is unseen and thus "vague," and Capra's triangle brings this "vagueness" into view so we can use it. This is so simple but deeply radical and revolutionary that you are skipping right past this point. You and everyone else are hung up on life as you perceive it: a collection of things.

ckaihatsu, I don't emphasize this as it will be automatically resented, but Capra's triangle and I have made a revolutionary breakthrough, and Capra's triangle potentially enables everyone to make revolutionary breakthroughs. The triangle and I are taking Marxism where it needs to go and where Marx and Engels would have already taken it, were they not mortal.

Other posters will object, but I am resurrecting Marx and Engels from the cold, dank, dead crypts of bygone times and outdated theory to which so many Marxists abandon them. Marx and Engels are our founding comrades, and deserve much better.

You referred to life having a pattern of organization as "borderline religious" I actually do not object to that categorization in the sense that life is community and community is "spiritual" (borderline religious). All you have to do is to play sports on a team that enjoys teamwork, or be part of a good family, or experience "school spirit," or be part of a growing political process, to feel and know the "spirituality" of belonging and contributing to a community. This communal spirituality is not idealist, for it emerges from material relations.

Anarchism and communism and community are deeply and humanly spiritual. Religion, though, reduces spirituality to dead dogma.

I wrote, "The other category of perceptual blindness and the one I am stressing here is that of natural organizational relations that become unnatural in a self-reflective human mind that gets trapped in a species and individual bias and cannot see organization."

You replied, "I chalk this up to Marx's 'alienation'--a social factor, not a biological or individual one."

Well, where does human alienation come from if not from capitalism's unnatural relations (class and production for profit are violations of community) and other violations of life's pattern of organization and community such as patriarchy, racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, etc? Those last categories, by the way, are all products of a partial consciousness that cannot see the organizational, communal, social relations that are inseparable from our perceived being as isolated individuals.

This perceptual division of life's underlying unity is humanity's original sin. Life is differentiated community, and we see the differentiation but miss the community.

Life is organized as community--cells to biosphere--and this is a biological, material organization. So "red" and "green" are a natural unity; the organization of life and communism are a natural unity.

The thrust of the red-green project is to get others to see that humanity must organize its societies naturally, and that Capra's triangle models the universal, natural pattern of organization of life on Earth.

All living systems are self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; how they dynamically engage their environment to make their living). Find me a single living system that doesn't match that description, or a single human social system that doesn't need to organize itself in that manner.

And Capra's triangle would make all of this simple, were it not for our human difficulty in seeing organization.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for the continuing engagement and your last post, which more or less "proves" my contention that a paradigm shift of sorts in perception/consciousness will be required if the human species is to continue. The human species cannot exist any longer in global socio-economic systems opposed to life and its organization.


Yes.





And Capra's triangle models life's universal organizational pattern to we who must learn to employ life's unseen relations.

I wrote, "Can you see the natural organization from which the visible things of life emerge?" You replied, "I continue to see this as being overly vague and borderline religious."

But, ckaihatsu, this is the whole point of the triangle. Life's organization is unseen and thus "vague," and Capra's triangle brings this "vagueness" into view so we can use it.


I do appreciate this, MN, and it's a point worth stressing, since it's inherently counter-reductionist.

I'll submit that we commonly may be used to using a *hindsight*-based analytical process -- an inherently *deductive* one, where we use *reductive* concepts in order to 'get a handle' on the component parts of something that has already transpired.

What you're advancing is an *inductive* process, essentially, wherein one must *surmise* how an array of components might *assemble* into something not yet existing -- a creation of sorts.





This is so simple but deeply radical and revolutionary that you are skipping right past this point. You and everyone else are hung up on life as you perceive it: a collection of things.


Based on the preceding, I'll posit that the problem isn't so much seeing something as 'a collection of things', itself -- rather, it's whether we ascertain the collection (data) to be *static* or *dynamic* -- again, that which is past is necessarily "static", as fixed objective empirical fact -- either uncovered or not -- but that which is yet to be is *not* static, but is still to be determined. Those who can dynamically *induce* from 'a collection of things' have vastly greater potentials to *affect* and *determine* future possibilities.





ckaihatsu, I don't emphasize this as it will be automatically resented, but Capra's triangle and I have made a revolutionary breakthrough, and Capra's triangle potentially enables everyone to make revolutionary breakthroughs. The triangle and I are taking Marxism where it needs to go and where Marx and Engels would have already taken it, were they not mortal.

Other posters will object, but I am resurrecting Marx and Engels from the cold, dank, dead crypts of bygone times and outdated theory to which so many Marxists abandon them. Marx and Engels are our founding comrades, and deserve much better.


Cool.





You referred to life having a pattern of organization as "borderline religious" I actually do not object to that categorization in the sense that life is community and community is "spiritual" (borderline religious). All you have to do is to play sports on a team that enjoys teamwork, or be part of a good family, or experience "school spirit," or be part of a growing political process, to feel and know the "spirituality" of belonging and contributing to a community. This communal spirituality is not idealist, for it emerges from material relations.


Okay -- I tend to borrow from business-speak for this, and call it 'going forward'.





Anarchism and communism and community are deeply and humanly spiritual. Religion, though, reduces spirituality to dead dogma.

I wrote, "The other category of perceptual blindness and the one I am stressing here is that of natural organizational relations that become unnatural in a self-reflective human mind that gets trapped in a species and individual bias and cannot see organization."

You replied, "I chalk this up to Marx's 'alienation'--a social factor, not a biological or individual one."

Well, where does human alienation come from if not from capitalism's unnatural relations (class and production for profit are violations of community) and other violations of life's pattern of organization and community such as patriarchy, racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, etc?


Sure, definitely.





Those last categories, by the way, are all products of a partial consciousness that cannot see the organizational, communal, social relations that are inseparable from our perceived being as isolated individuals.


A point of distinction here:

The social ills you list are not *products* of 'a partial consciousness that cannot see the organizational, communal, [and] social relations', but rather are *manifested* as a partial consciousness of the same. The *causation* -- not unknown to yourself -- is the class divide.





This perceptual division of life's underlying unity is humanity's original sin. Life is differentiated community, and we see the differentiation but miss the community.

Life is organized as community--cells to biosphere--and this is a biological, material organization. So "red" and "green" are a natural unity; the organization of life and communism are a natural unity.


Okay, sure.





The thrust of the red-green project is to get others to see that humanity must organize its societies naturally, and that Capra's triangle models the universal, natural pattern of organization of life on Earth.

All living systems are self-organized material systems network-patterned with their life activity (what they do; how they dynamically engage their environment to make their living). Find me a single living system that doesn't match that description, or a single human social system that doesn't need to organize itself in that manner.

And Capra's triangle would make all of this simple, were it not for our human difficulty in seeing organization.

My red-green best.


Yup, thanks, MN.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for an open-minded, productive post. I somehow lost my reply as I posted it, and now I have to go to a medical exam (note: medical not mental) and will have to get back to you tomorrow.

I thought it really important that you could see that the "vagueness" of the triangle might not be a "triangle problem" but is instead related to the difficulty human perception/consciousness has in seeing life's critical organizational relations.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, Thanks for an open-minded, productive post. I somehow lost my reply as I posted it, and now I have to go to a medical exam (note: medical not mental) and will have to get back to you tomorrow.

I thought it really important that you could see that the "vagueness" of the triangle might not be a "triangle problem" but is instead related to the difficulty human perception/consciousness has in seeing life's critical organizational relations.

My red-green best.


Yes, I have no differences with your framework as it is -- that's why I've been glad to contribute to its development.

I will emphasize, though, that any outstanding shortcomings on the part of people with their consciousness regarding the class divide is due to a *manifestation* of the objective class divide onto their / our consciousness.

At some point in people's lives they / we become politically aware, including of the class divide, and people's expressions of social issues reflects their objective (and/or chosen) interests in relation to class.

(For example, the vast majority of people must make their living from the sale of their labor power, and so their / our objective interest is with the larger working class. People may become conscious of this fact and express their awareness in accord with this reality, or they may not.) (Some are born into more privileged economic positions and are not under duress to sell their labor power -- they may express a set of politics that intentionally misrepresents the magnitude of various social issues, and may even deny that the class divide exists.)

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I'll catch up on that post I lost yesterday after I again suggest a "new class" has replaced the old Marxist concept of class and can be the basis for a new, successful "class warfare." "Class" is perhaps the weakest area of Marxist theory. Marx correctly perceived that capitalism would manufacture two great warring classes, and he tried to promote a successful revolution by the working class that would end artifical socio-economic divisions between people and establish communal forms of living.

But class is an unnatural product of an unnatural socio-economic system, and people do not naturally view themselves in terms of class. Proof? The failure of proletarian revolution in its time and the near-complete current absence of any proletarian consciousness in capitalism's center: the US.

I believe the concept of class, though, still has applicability in the sense that class generally refers to one's relationship to the means of production, and that with globalization, the entire human species and its labors has been captured by capitalism. So I have suggested that the soon-to-be extincted human species in its entirety offers a potential for revolutionary organizing. Revoutionary individuals and groups can emerge from all "classes."

Dogmatists and those without vision will say I am promoting a ruling class revolution, which is nonsense. They will say I am opposed to Marxism for the sole reason that Marx, who died more than a century ago, didn't say what I'm saying. But Marxism is--or must become again--a living revolutionary theory and process.

And then there are areas of the world where the old worker versus ruling class revolutionary theory is still applicable, and so that will be the revolutionary path. Other places will have other relations and thus different revolutionary tactics and strategies, but all roads must lead to communal forms of living. Life is community.

The entire human species has been captured by capitalism and faces extinction or a New Stone Age, and it should be impermissible for ostensibly revolutionary Marxists to dismiss this reality out of hand.

Now I'm not going to say that what I have presented is the definite way to go, but I will insist that flexible, radical thinking is required if the left is ever to get off its ass and engage the new global capitalist realities. I'm not throwing Marxism away, but trying to breathe fresh life into it and re-revolutionize Marxism. I'm a Marxist, and so I maintain a revolutionary mind.

Now I'll try to recreate that lost post from yesterday. ckaihatsu raised some fertile points. My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Let's get to a couple of the fertile points you made a couple of posts ago. For one, I hadn't thought of the triangle in terms of induction and deduction, but such a view is insightful. On one hand, the triangle has been inductively assembled from Capra's perception of life's pattern of organization. On the other hand, triangle operators are to deductively employ it to view the details and organization of their situation, and then create new details and new, communal organizations opposed to the organization of capitalism.

The triangle thus marries induction/deduction and details/organization, which are unities in life. Living matter is inseparable from its organization, although our brains split them.

I'll remark again that everyone "sees" organizational relations as "vague," semi-religious, abstract, idealist, etc., and this is due to that perception/consciousness that demands solid stuff to grab hold of.

I also liked your discrimination between a static and a dynamic "collection of things." The static collection is lifeless and reductive, of course, but add dynamism to this collection and we engage life's ceaseless motion and change and, I believe, the dynamic organization underlying all of this. Life can be described as a dynamic collection of living systems. Anarchism and communism are dynamic, self-organized collections of people.

I'm getting to this too late in my day, and my brain is dead (but not split). My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'll catch up on that post I lost yesterday after I again suggest a "new class" has replaced the old Marxist concept of class


I'll point you to the diagram at the bottom of this post -- as long as ownership (of capital) directs the production process, whatever that may be, it will also determine how labor is valued. That's the basis of 'class', then as now.





and can be the basis for a new, successful "class warfare."


You may want to share some definitions here.





"Class" is perhaps the weakest area of Marxist theory.


No, it's its bedrock.





Marx correctly perceived that capitalism would manufacture two great warring classes, and he tried to promote a successful revolution by the working class that would end artifical socio-economic divisions between people and establish communal forms of living.




But class is an unnatural product of an unnatural socio-economic system,


This is an odd way of wording it -- you're indicating a false dichotomy, since class and the 'unnatural socio-economic system' are one and the same.





and people do not naturally view themselves in terms of class. Proof? The failure of proletarian revolution in its time and the near-complete current absence of any proletarian consciousness in capitalism's center: the US.


Well, it's to be *expected* that certain ideas -- in this case, political ones -- are not favored for the popular culture by the powers-that-be. It's a *struggle* just to make such a subject into an everyday kind of topic.

(I'll add that it's a common status symbol to have your *own* brand of bullshit added to the overall mix, or general bourgeois culture....)





I believe the concept of class, though, still has applicability in the sense that class generally refers to one's relationship to the means of production,


Yeah, that's the definition. There's no difference in *that*, or in the objective conditions for it since its introduction.





and that with globalization, the entire human species and its labors has been captured by capitalism. So I have suggested that the soon-to-be extincted human species in its entirety offers a potential for revolutionary organizing.


If the human species is soon to be extinct, according to you, then why would anyone need to bother with revolutionary organizing -- !





Revoutionary individuals and groups can emerge from all "classes."


I don't think that bourgeois *groups* tend to impulsively, or even historically, switch to linking arms with the proletariat -- certainly some *individuals* may, here and there, but even then it takes a discerning eye to ascertain exactly what political line they're then espousing.





Dogmatists and those without vision will say I am promoting a ruling class revolution, which is nonsense. They will say I am opposed to Marxism for the sole reason that Marx, who died more than a century ago, didn't say what I'm saying. But Marxism is--or must become again--a living revolutionary theory and process.

And then there are areas of the world where the old worker versus ruling class revolutionary theory is still applicable, and so that will be the revolutionary path.


Remember *this* part -- ?





[C]lass [...] refers to one's relationship to the means of production,





Other places will have other relations and thus different revolutionary tactics and strategies,


You're equivocating here -- there *are no* 'other relations' than that of bourgeoisie and proletariat. Also, the general strategies and tactics used by the proletarian struggle are well documented, from history.





but all roads must lead to communal forms of living. Life is community.

The entire human species has been captured by capitalism and faces extinction or a New Stone Age, and it should be impermissible for ostensibly revolutionary Marxists to dismiss this reality out of hand.

Now I'm not going to say that what I have presented is the definite way to go, but I will insist that flexible, radical thinking is required if the left is ever to get off its ass and engage the new global capitalist realities. I'm not throwing Marxism away, but trying to breathe fresh life into it and re-revolutionize Marxism. I'm a Marxist, and so I maintain a revolutionary mind.

Now I'll try to recreate that lost post from yesterday. ckaihatsu raised some fertile points. My red-green best.




ckaihatsu, Let's get to a couple of the fertile points you made a couple of posts ago. For one, I hadn't thought of the triangle in terms of induction and deduction, but such a view is insightful.


No prob -- that's what I do.





On one hand, the triangle has been inductively assembled from Capra's perception of life's pattern of organization. On the other hand, triangle operators are to deductively employ it to view the details and organization of their situation, and then create new details and new, communal organizations opposed to the organization of capitalism.


Yep, sure.





The triangle thus marries induction/deduction and details/organization, which are unities in life.


Yes.





Living matter is inseparable from its organization, although our brains split them.




I'll remark again that everyone "sees" organizational relations as "vague," semi-religious, abstract, idealist, etc., and this is due to that perception/consciousness that demands solid stuff to grab hold of.


Well, I'll submit that it's due to conditioned learned passivity, due to the existing power structure. People are not generally enabled to determine their / our own fates, through empowered, unfettered egalitarian cooperation with others, even though as a species we're unhampered.

Discussing things only in the abstract or only according to fixed, past realities leaves one open to possibly well-founded value judgments that they *are* being 'vague', 'semi-religious', 'abstract', and 'idealist'.

Forward-looking, creative directions, on the other hand, require dealing with a different kind of realm, one of realistic *potentialities* and *possibilities* -- the types of judgments are different, based on different kinds of assessments, of different things. Hence will and politics, etc.





I also liked your discrimination between a static and a dynamic "collection of things." The static collection is lifeless and reductive, of course, but add dynamism to this collection and we engage life's ceaseless motion and change and, I believe, the dynamic organization underlying all of this. Life can be described as a dynamic collection of living systems. Anarchism and communism are dynamic, self-organized collections of people.

I'm getting to this too late in my day, and my brain is dead (but not split). My red-green best.


Yup. Take care, later.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://postimage.org/image/1bygthl38/

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I have the flu, and on top of this, your post yesterday seemed to only want to argue, and your arguments did not make sense.

I wrote that Marxism's class theory is its weakpoint, to which you replied it is Marxism's "bedrock." Well, if class is the bedrock of Marxism, we are on shakey ground, indeed.

I have made it my habit to search out and learn from those few Marxist theorists around who are still revolutionary in mind, spirit, and theory. In other words, they maintain minds similar in spirit and focus to those of Marx and Engels. And here is one of those Marxists, Bertell Ollman, on class, taken from the essay, "Marx's use of Class," in his Social and Sexual Revolution (1979). "The plurality of criteria Marx uses in constructing classes is reminiscent of present day confusion on this subject .... The conclusion remains that for a variety of purposes, Marx divides society up in many different ways, speaking of the parts in each case as 'classes'.... Any attempt to explain Marx's practice must start with the admission that Marx uses this term loosely, often putting it forward as a synonym for 'group', 'faction', or 'layer'." Later he states, "Marx's tripartite division of society into capitalists, proletarians, and landowners is the prevalent one, and it is also the classification most in keeping with his other theories."

Class is the bedrock of Marxism? Thank Marx and Engels it isn't! Historical materialism, the analysis of capitalism and surplus value, and the slippery relations of life and society revealed by the real Marxist materialist dialectic are the bedrocks of Marxism.

And there is that little problem that proletarian revolution as originally conceived by Marx and Engels has failed everywhere. Does this theory of revolution need a tune-up? Should it be abandoned in its entirety? Marxists should be asking these questions, and I'm trying.

I'm also amazed you would ask, "If the human species is soon to be extincted, according to you, then why would anyone need to bother with revolutionary organizing?"

Damn, ckaihatsu, we should learn to organize so we don't go extinct!!!!

Now I'll review those thumbnails, which I definitely appreciate. I just couldn't let what appears to be naked argumentative perversity in your remarks on class go unchallenged, though.

Life is a differentiated unity, and successful revolutionary processes must be differentiated unities, too, wherein comrades come together to unite their various beings and practices in an effective whole. I'm not seeing much of this on the left, though. It seems "comrades" are meeting more to sic their various dogmas on each other, and not to develop a unifying praxis. This is a sure road to the species extinction I want to prevent.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I have the flu, and on top of this, your post yesterday seemed to only want to argue, and your arguments did not make sense.

I wrote that Marxism's class theory is its weakpoint, to which you replied it is Marxism's "bedrock." Well, if class is the bedrock of Marxism, we are on shakey ground, indeed.





Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians(1)

The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

[...]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm





I have made it my habit to search out and learn from those few Marxist theorists around who are still revolutionary in mind, spirit, and theory. In other words, they maintain minds similar in spirit and focus to those of Marx and Engels. And here is one of those Marxists, Bertell Ollman, on class, taken from the essay, "Marx's use of Class," in his Social and Sexual Revolution (1979). "The plurality of criteria Marx uses in constructing classes is reminiscent of present day confusion on this subject .... The conclusion remains that for a variety of purposes, Marx divides society up in many different ways, speaking of the parts in each case as 'classes'.... Any attempt to explain Marx's practice must start with the admission that Marx uses this term loosely, often putting it forward as a synonym for 'group', 'faction', or 'layer'." Later he states, "Marx's tripartite division of society into capitalists, proletarians, and landowners is the prevalent one, and it is also the classification most in keeping with his other theories."


Landowners are rentier capitalists, meaning that they are a cost to both wage-earner and speculator -- their economic position is not a productive one -- manufacturing is.





Class is the bedrock of Marxism? Thank Marx and Engels it isn't! Historical materialism, the analysis of capitalism and surplus value, and the slippery relations of life and society revealed by the real Marxist materialist dialectic are the bedrocks of Marxism.

And there is that little problem that proletarian revolution as originally conceived by Marx and Engels has failed everywhere. Does this theory of revolution need a tune-up? Should it be abandoned in its entirety? Marxists should be asking these questions, and I'm trying.


Some would see places like Cuba and the fUSSR as partial successes, though I wouldn't argue that directly myself.

Nonetheless class relations continue to exist, and to be the main social divide in the world.





I'm also amazed you would ask, "If the human species is soon to be extincted, according to you, then why would anyone need to bother with revolutionary organizing?"

Damn, ckaihatsu, we should learn to organize so we don't go extinct!!!!


Hmmmm, it's a good point -- you may want to drop the sensationalism, then.





Now I'll review those thumbnails, which I definitely appreciate. I just couldn't let what appears to be naked argumentative perversity in your remarks on class go unchallenged, though.

Life is a differentiated unity, and successful revolutionary processes must be differentiated unities, too, wherein comrades come together to unite their various beings and practices in an effective whole. I'm not seeing much of this on the left, though. It seems "comrades" are meeting more to sic their various dogmas on each other, and not to develop a unifying praxis. This is a sure road to the species extinction I want to prevent.

My red-green best.


Yeah, I'll agree that -- especially to the newcomer -- it seems like a messy, chaotic internal war of words, but there *is* a surprising diversity of discrete positions within the left, and very little of it is trivial. The more one can distinguish their own position in relation to the rest of it, the better-off one will be, politically.

I hope it will suffice, and perhaps provide some relief, to know that, on the larger question of overthrowing capitalism, there is vast common ground, with the finer political details to be decided by future events.

Take care, get some rest, later.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Let's take a detour from our "class warfare." I have a couple of points to make. The first has to do with the "consciousness problem" I have been stressing. I believe an absolute proof this exists can be found in the new physics, where perceiving quantum relations, a 4th dimension of spacetime, and the sheer relativity of all the universe's "things" eludes our reductionist, conscious grasp. Scientists have learned to indirectly and intuitively understand the cosmos and its relations and to settle for approximation.

Well, in a universe and a life process on Earth where all is dynamically interdependent, it becomes impossible to truly isolate an "it" for separate study, doesn't it? The human brain does reductively accomplish this isolation and thus makes it possible to manipulate things in our mind before we rearrange them reality, but in doing so, our minds miss the necessary organizational pattern by which we must arrange our "things."

As Bertell Ollman writes, Marx and the materialist dialectic get around this "inseparability of life problem" with their adoption of the Hegelian philosophy of internal relations, which accurately recognizes life as an internally related whole comprising myriad internally related wholes (thus inseparably related), and with the employment of an abstraction process wherein Marx consciously extracted an "internal" internally related whole from the overall internally related whole. So Marx might abstract the labor process from capitalism in the study of the creation of surplus value, or examine the proletariat as a class within the labor process of capitalism, while simultaneously keeping track of capitalism as a whole system.

I'm reading Capra's Tao of Physics (the best intro to the new physics I know of) and Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe jointly in the morning. A major reason for this is I need to keep my mind open and attuned to the magical but slippery and not directly intelligible realities underlying life's "things." So I am reacquainted on a daily basis with the extreme difficulties of perceiving organizational relations, and this is proof of a "human perception/consciousness problem. Everyone has this problem: it is a species problem for we who must consciously create and order our social systems.

The other point has to do with using Capra's triangle to illustrate capitalism's deadly organizational dysfunction. On Earth, matter self-organizes into material living systems that engage their environment to extract the energy and relations necessary to their being. As the triangle illustrates, the pattern of organization of living systems is inseparable (as are their relations), and so in a living system how they interconnect with their environment to make their living (Process) is inseparably united with Pattern and Matter. Living systems and healthy human social systems engage their environment to ecologically, sustainably generate the profit necessary to maintain themselves internally as community and engage the rest of life externally in community. So life generates a sustainable "profit" (energy surplus) in order to create and maintain community, and the two Capra triangles model living systems: communities.

Now let's look at a "capitalist triangle." Capitalism produces for profit taken from community; its organization kills life. So a capitalist triangle would have a Process angle whose lines would veer away from connections with the angles of Matter and Pattern. Capitalist profit takes from life and the life process. So I would draw a capitalist triangle with the lines from Process veering away from a disconnected bottom triangle line with Matter and Pattern labeled at its ends. This open, disconnected triangle is dead. It cannot renew itself by generating the necessary energy. It is not a system: it is chaos.

I've mentioned that my love of organizational visuals over reductive details is something of an Einstein thing, too. Here is Einstein: "Since the mathematicians have grabbed hold of the theory of relativity, I myself no longer understand it."

I am hardly dismissing math, and Einstein didn't, although he didn't feel he was especially gifted in mathematics. Einstein combined inductive and deductive thought, and worked with both organization and the details organized, of course. For almost all people, though, who must self-organize (together), something like a Capra's triangle is needed to provide a lens by which they may learn to see life's one and only pattern of organization and thereby organize their lives.

Here is Einstein on his dynamic, visual thinking process: "The ... elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will."

And Capra's triangle potentially provides humanity with its visual for the organization of life, community, and revolution. My red-green best.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, I took a look at your thumbnails, which provide, as usual, important organizational details or hierarchical levels of the systems evaluated. But what is the underlying organization of those details or the "details" of life and community?

Learning to go beneath those details to see their organization will necessitate a perceptual shift in consciousness for the human species, and Capra's triangle is the deeply radical, unprecedented mental tool that makes this possible.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I took a look at your thumbnails, which provide, as usual, important organizational details or hierarchical levels of the systems evaluated. But what is the underlying organization of those details or the "details" of life and community?

Learning to go beneath those details to see their organization will necessitate a perceptual shift in consciousness for the human species, and Capra's triangle is the deeply radical, unprecedented mental tool that makes this possible.

My red-green best.


If you mean the link to the graphic illustrations I provided at post #131 -- those cover a broad expanse of subject material.

I appreciate your attempt to "sum them up" in a concise few words, but your characterization is over-reaching.

Obviously your work is *nature* focused, also evident from your consistent verbiage.

I'll note one of the illustrations I've done that shows a gradation from nature to human society -- it seems appropos here:


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

http://postimage.org/image/35rsjgh0k/

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, All my triangle work has to do with natural organization, and not just nature, and anarchism and communism have a natural, communal organization that comrades have been unable to bring to life because they do not see or understand the organization of life (thus society).

And Capra's Triangle makes life's organization visible and usable to us. It tells us to design various forms of community in which people and tools (Matter) are network-Patterned into the systemic form by which they integrate into their physical and social environment to make their living (Process).

That is the universal pattern of organization of the living systems that create and compose the life process on Earth, and this previously unavailable information is almost indescribably radical and revolutionary.

It seems people inherently become mindboggled when they are presented with the organization underlying the details of life, although people naturally create forms of community all the time without knowing the "rules." For instance, a formal brainstorming session is set up so that people self-organize (design) a material living system or project that is integrated into the environment. A brainstorm thus aptly but unconsciously mimics life.

Capra's Triangle potentially enables brainstormers and revolutionary theorists to engage and design life on its terms. It makes creating effective revolutionary organizing theories and processes possible.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

the organization of life (thus society).


In the best possible spirit, MN, you may want to create a statement that expands on this thesis of yours. While showing the three main aspects may readily describe natural organization and also be intuitively appealing, I'll continue to maintain that the *gap* between 'matter, pattern, and process', and 'anarchism and communism' is too great for your thesis to provide explanatory power.





Capra's Triangle potentially enables brainstormers and revolutionary theorists to engage and design life on its terms. It makes creating effective revolutionary organizing theories and processes possible.


I'll agree that your framework encourages brainstorming, and that's its strength. It could very well be used as a cognitive tool to get everyone "on the same page" -- for a common, consistent point of reference regarding context.

I also have to note that your model doesn't even *touch* on the interim -- the 'how to get there from here', that's sorely needed -- a revolutionary *program*.

[Mr. Natural]

ckaihatsu, Your thumbnails assemble many of the details of a process, but what is the underlying organization that enables those details to merge into a systemic process with hierarchical levels? For instance, a cell has an enormous number of "details" (components). But these components have self-organized into a systemic process (the cell). How do they do that? What is the organizational process? Might this be the organization by which people can learn to develop revolutionary processes and live in community?

Hint: Yes.

I found your thumbnail's reference to Maslow interesting, for I like him and his hierarchy of needs. Margaret Wheatley was an early interest of mine who applied some of the new science to organization in her A Simpler Way and Leadership and the New Science. She gets mired in New Age thought and applications, though, and denounces Maslow and his hierarchy as some sort of linear, dominator system. Maslow, though, while using a pyramid model, is careful to note, as I believe I remember, that these levels are interrelated, and this puts his hierarchy in the realm of life's inseparable, dynamically interdependent hierarchal relations. Maslow's pyramid is a living pyramid.

You wrote, "the 'gap' between 'matter, pattern, and process' and 'anarchism and communism' is too great for your thesis to provide explanatory power." But, ckaihatsu, there isn't a gap between life's organization and viable human organization unless our partial human consciousness of life's organization puts it there. Otherwise, the communities of life and viable human forms of community will have exactly the same pattern of organization, albeit with vastly different expressions.

Life on Earth has one pattern of organization with countless forms of expression. Remember: "Life is surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity." (Murray Gell-Mann, primary founder of the Santa Fe Institute and discoverer of the quark)

Capra's Triangle then enables us to see and use this deep organizational simplicity.

Brainstorms work so well because they are organized in the pattern of the triangle and life and tend to apply that organization to the projects they design.

And I have repeatedly promoted a grassroots, revolutionary organizing process in which people learn to use the triangle to design aware forms of community that can invade the capitalist ecosystem and grow. These revolutionary groups/communities would be "aware" of the universal pattern of organization of life and society, and nothing could be more radical and revolutionary than for regular people to learn to see and employ natural organization.

The organization of the rest of life also tells us anarchist/communist revolutionary processes must be bottom-up, grassroots processes. Otherwise, we will wind up with a Wheatley dominator pyramid, and not Maslow's living hierarchy of needs.

And learning to organize and live in life's pattern would constitute a revolutionary paradigm shift in human perception/consciousness. It would be a revolutionary wake up call for the human species.

My red-green best.

[ckaihatsu]

I hope I'm not being merely academic here with the following....

These portions here are -- if I may -- examples of *subjective interpretation* of an aspect of 'natural [social] organization':





Brainstorms work so well because they are organized in the pattern of the triangle and life and tend to apply that organization to the projects they design.





The organization of the rest of life also tells us anarchist/communist revolutionary processes must be bottom-up, grassroots processes. Otherwise, we will wind up with a Wheatley dominator pyramid, and not Maslow's living hierarchy of needs.


Without meaning to be dismissive of your whole thesis, I think it's just worth noting that -- while I entirely agree with the line here -- both of these interpretations are from a material-*arbitrary* space of options.

In other words, I could just as correctly say, 'Life shows us a natural order that includes predation, so we should transfer that over to our social practices in some form.'

Or, for the second one, how about, 'The organization [...] of life also tells us that [political] processes must be *hierarchical* in decision-making authority-power.' -- ?

It should be obvious by now that anthropocentrizing is simply the *complement* of *involvement*, with a threshold at the ground floor of just-casually-observing. Our best judgments and contributions may seem "natural", and they may very well *be* both, too, but they are inescapably *judgments* and *value calls* (subjective selections from a finite range of options), not merely "organic vocalizations" from 5- and 6-foot-tall bodily outgrowths of DNA itself.

So, the natural organization of life, etc., *does* incontrovertibly indicate that we should use our brains for decision-making, in effecting ways -- and, now, in potentially *globally* impactful ways, through collective revolutionary organizing. (That last part there was obviously *propaganda*, since nature doesn't really show us anything that *inherently* hints at global human world-planning.)(See how *that* works....)

And, in terms of empirical possibilities, who's to say that low-level, grassroots, anarchist- and communist-type organizing, post-capitalism, *wouldn't* possibly spontaneously build up to global scales, in a self-emergent kind of way -- ?

This kind of science, MN, is very empowering but it also makes transparent that, outside of formal, regular habits and routines, the human species is self-determining -- and can continue to be so, even in increasingly improved ways -- and so, as a result, breaks with Mother Nature, politically speaking.

The smallest incident of damaging nature in a lasting way would be the proof that human society is *able* to consciously and willfully act against natural 'nature-ist' interests.

So with this power comes responsibility, etc. -- there *is no* 'natural state' for human society, and no blueprint from Nature. We have ourselves to convince ourselves, with no answers intrinsically available elsewhere.


[EDIT:] Haven't forgotten about the project, MN -- been delayed, will be back at it fairly soon.

[ckaihatsu]

I've been away from Inkscape longer than I thought -- here's the latest. As always, let me know what to alter. Later.

[ckaihatsu]

(Update.)